We know where it will land accurately because that maths and physics has been sharpened with butt loads of data. Even the reentry blackout has links to war in Plasma Stealth[0].
That data was mostly obtained because we want to know where our ICBM warheads will land. And where the enemies ICBM warheads will land so we can work on the problem of shooting them down.
The Russian Kinzhal missile can hit targets at mach-10, with a plasma aura making it's terminal phase hard to track on Radar. But after some data was collected Patriot missile systems were able to intercept about 1 in 3 air launched Kinzhal missiles. Then minor terminal adjustments were introduced and interception fell to about 1 in 20. Now there's a constant cat and mouse game going on in Ukraine.
On the one hand that's a good thing, our combative efforts being sublimated into curiosity of the world.
On the other hand, we still put far more effort into furthering our ability to destroy the world.
IIRC reentry plasma is actually highly radar reflective - so it is not hard to track, just hard to hit due to the speed, as there is limited time to do it.
If that were the case then the mach-10 Kinzhal would be harder to hit than the mach-5 Kh-32.
But the interception rate for the Kh-32 is basically nonexistence (<1%).
The Kh-22/32 is why mach-5 + maneuverability is the current goal of offensive missile systems.
The plasma has complex interaction with radar, it's not stealth as in entirely invisible just chaotic scattering and reflections. The result is a jamming effect preventing a definite intercept solution.
On the other hand the plasma shows up on satilite based IR tracking systems.
You're factually incorrect with most of your Kinzhal-related points.
Kinzhal is just an air-launched version of Iskander with a bit better energetics because of not launching stationary from the ground. It's not a magic superweapon.
Its terminal manoeuvring is hardly new, Pershing II was doing that back in the 70s.
The top speed of a ballistic missile (that you're citing) is not the same as its speed in the interception-relevant section of the flight, because atmosphere gets denser and slows missiles down (and manoeuvring slows MARVs down even further). The Ukrainian operators claim that the observed speed was close to Mach 3.6.
The primary interceptor for the higher energy Kinzhal would be THAAD, not PAC-3. Sadly, Ukraine didn't get THAAD.
"Plasma stealth" is a sci-fi fabrication. The US had no problem tracking ICBM RVs with their much higher speeds close enough for a direct hit during a Sprint test back in the 70s.
That's an absurd statement. By your logic, you can't just say that we have the smallpox vaccine "because of Edward Jenner". Because you would also "have to prove we could not do it without Edward Jenner". What does that even mean??
I can’t elaborate on your example as I’m not very knowledge-able on the smallpox vaccine bit that depends on how close we were to inventing the vaccine anyway - I’ll take your word on we were not and Edward Jenner had a revolutionary advancement. Then we can say we have the vaccine thanks to him.
But when it comes to space technology, if it was possible to produce the same technology by targeting the required technology directly, we can’t say it was because of war only because some of the inventions of war were re-used. It eould be like saying we have a 45th president thanks to Trump - it would be absurd as we’d have a 45th president anyway.
So I do not think there is enough grounds to attribute this mission’s success to war - with some of the war’s budget, NASA could have invented the required technology anyway.
We can do this because of war.
We know where it will land accurately because that maths and physics has been sharpened with butt loads of data. Even the reentry blackout has links to war in Plasma Stealth[0].
That data was mostly obtained because we want to know where our ICBM warheads will land. And where the enemies ICBM warheads will land so we can work on the problem of shooting them down.
The Russian Kinzhal missile can hit targets at mach-10, with a plasma aura making it's terminal phase hard to track on Radar. But after some data was collected Patriot missile systems were able to intercept about 1 in 3 air launched Kinzhal missiles. Then minor terminal adjustments were introduced and interception fell to about 1 in 20. Now there's a constant cat and mouse game going on in Ukraine.
On the one hand that's a good thing, our combative efforts being sublimated into curiosity of the world.
On the other hand, we still put far more effort into furthering our ability to destroy the world.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_stealth