[sp332]

Ablating the surface will deflect the missile from its course. Not as good as destroying it but will probably reduce its effectiveness quite a bit.

[gnode]

This isn't much of a problem for a hypersonic glide vehicle; it can correct course.

[himeexcelanta]

So the control algorithm for the glide vehicle is going to correct for damaged ablative/control surfaces? I don’t believe this technology currently exists.

[gnode]

The scenario under discussion was the use of ablative surfaces to prevent damage. I'm not sure (I doubt) this is actually an effective countermeasure though.

Compensating for damaged control surfaces isn't impossible in all cases though, for the most part, fly-by-wire systems are servomechanisms which will scale their responses until the desired feedback is produced.