A surface launched interceptor developed to destroy ballistic missiles mid-flight has been developed by a California-based defense technology company.
Long Wall’s Cyclops is the new interceptor that has been designed to operate outside Earth’s atmosphere and to target ballistic missiles via a hit-to-kill approach that relies on direct impact rather than explosive warheads.
Source: Long Wall
The easy-to-manufacture Cyclops has been developed to close a gap in the defense industry so that enough interceptors are available to sustain prolonged defense operations.
Central to the design of the Cyclops is an exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) that destroys incoming missiles solely via kinetic energy.
The Cyclops was also developed to support a distributed, layered defense strategy, wherein interceptors are placed at multiple locations to complicate an adversary’s attack plan.
As such, Long Wall has also built a containerized launching system that can be deployed on land or aboard ships and that can fit within a standard shipping container, thus enabling quick transport and emplacement.
