Though she noted it was only a test, Geller said the implications could be significant. has to deal with tracking a hypersonic weapon, “which is a problem that we’ve already been facing because hypersonic weapons fly at low altitudes at obviously very fast speeds and can maneuver to its target, making tracking very difficult,” Geller added. The second problem is that once the weapon is “deorbited” or deployed from the system, then the U.S. can detect most large rocket and missile launches, but might not be able to track a glide vehicle throughout its entire orbit or even see the Chinese orbital system is armed with something like a nuclear hypersonic weapon, she said. “The combination of those two technologies creates two problems for our detection and tracking capabilities,” Patty-Jane Geller, a policy analyst for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told Defense News.
