US hypersonic missile tests have to join a long queue

SLIGHTLY LONGER VERSION OF MY TIMES STORY TODAY: The Pentagon’s hopes of fielding the first hypersonic weapon by 2023 is at risk because of huge demand at America’s sole long-range ballistic-missile flight-test centre located on an atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, a government watchdog has warned. The Ronald Reagan missile defence site in the Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands, is involved in all flight tests for intercontinental ballistic missiles and anti-missile interceptors, and launched the first hypersonic weapon a year ago. Equipped with four of the most advanced radars in the world and five high-powered telescope systems, the atoll centre, spread out over eight islands, collects data while tracking the flight of a missile over the ocean. Boats with sensors on board also have to be positioned along the route of the test flight and can “take weeks to reach their remote destinations”. With 40 planned test flights in the joint US army and navy hypersonic missile programme over the next five years, the Kwajalein military site which uses just one “flight test corridor” over the Pacific will not be able to cope with the accelerating pace of testing, the US government accountability office said in a report. If the Pentagon fails to conduct all the proposed flight tests of the hypersonic missile which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), “they will be forced to either proceed to an operational capability with fewer tests (and thus less knowledge) or to accept the delay, with schedule and cost consequences”, the report said. The Kwajalein Atoll is uniquely placed to allow for long-range missile tests across the Pacific. Located at nine degrees north of the equator it is set in a broad ocean area which is ideal for missile launches to the east, “capitalising on the rotational velocity of the earth”. The Pentagon is spending $15 billion on developing hypersonic missiles in a rapid programme to keep pace with similar projects underway in China and Russia. The US NASA space agency and department of energy are helping to develop the technology which could lead to a hypersonic missile capable of speeds of up to Mach 20. The report reveals that the Pentagon is seeking international partnerships that could provide access to overland flight ranges. Aerial sensors are also being developed “that could relieve some of the burden on ground and sea-based sensors which are logistically difficult to arrange”.