Pentagon conducts hypersonic test — RT World News
The latest rocket launch was used to evaluate materials for high-velocity weapons still under development
The U.S. Navy and Army conducted a test of hypersonic weapons components and materials, advancing Pentagon efforts in a race with Russia and China to develop high-velocity weapons capable of evading missile systems. modern defenses.
Wednesday launch of a so-called « survey » Rocket off the coast of Virginia successfully tested hypersonic weapons communication and navigation equipment, as well as materials capable of withstanding the heat generated while traveling at Mach 5, five times the speed of sound , the Navy said in a statement. A second sounding rocket will be launched later this week to complete the final round of testing.
“These rockets contained experimental payloads that provided material and system performance data in a realistic hypersonic environment,” said the Navy. Such assessments fulfill a « critical deviation » between ground testing and full flight testing. « The data gathered from the latest sounding rocket campaign will enhance Navy and Army combat capabilities to ensure continued dominance on the battlefield. »
The Pentagon is striving to achieve hypersonic combat capability by the early to mid-2020s, fearing the United States is falling behind Russia and China in developing such weapons. Russia, in fact, has already used hypersonic missiles on the battlefield – in Ukraine – the first time such technology has been used in combat. Pentagon officials claimed in May that the missiles had no « game-changing effects. »
The Navy and Army are developing a shared hypersonic glide body design, which they will combine with individual weapon systems designed for launch from sea or land. Their first full system test, conducted in June, failed when a « anomaly » occurred after ignition. An earlier prototype test failed last year due to a recall failure.
Hypersonic glide vehicles are carried into the upper atmosphere by rockets and then glide towards their targets at speeds of Mach 5 or more. Their speed and maneuverability make them difficult to intercept with current defense systems.
The US Air Force is developing another type of hypersonic weapon, which uses a breathing system « scramjet » engine to reach high speeds. The so-called Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon (HAWC) concept reportedly had a successful test in March, when the missile was dropped from a B-52 Stratofortress off the west coast of the United States and flew on more than 300 nautical miles after igniting its scramjet engine and accelerating to speeds in excess of Mach 5.
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