Originally Posted by Excargodog

Did a little research. Given the missile has a range of 490 km as a ground launched missile and the MiG-31 can do Mach 2.8 at 70,000 feet where the air pressure is a very small fraction of sea level pressure (0.61 PSI vs 14.7 PSI) so you are generating the same thrust with an added Mach 2.8 velocity and far less air resistance, actually getting to Mach 10 and going somewhat less than three times as far ballistically seems pretty easily possible.

Nor is dramatically increasing the capability of a rocket by launching it from a fighter aircraft without precedent.

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Vi...llite-missile/

In Sept 1985 the US used an ASAT ASM-135 A to hit a satellite in low Earth orbit (350 miles high) launched from an F-15A doing just under Mach 1 from about 35.000 feet. That missile reached a maximum velocity of 15,000 mph - very nearly orbital velocity. In the last 37 years it would seem strange if the Russians couldn’t have matched or exceeded that performance. They are fairly competent with rockets. They’ve been took the first US astronaut up to the ISS for NASA in a Soyuz launch in 1995 and have been doing so pretty consistently since the last US space shuttle was decommissioned 11+ years ago.