US goes hypersonic at last

The US has carried out two successful hypersonic missile tests to boost a Pentagon research programme which has been plagued by technical failures. As both China and Russia have demonstrated advanced hypersonic weapons capable of reaching a minimum of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, the US has been trying to accelerate the research effort to match its great-power rivals. The tests took place as it emerged Russia is developing a medium-range ballistic anti-ship missile which has a hypersonic glide vehicle system attached, giving it greater manoeuvrability as it approaches a target at maximum speed. One of the successful American tests, completed at the US Army’s White Sands missile range in New Mexico, involved a medium-range missile launched from a 10-wheeled truck. Under a programme called Operational Fires, this was the first time the truck-launched missile had been successfully demonstrated. The aim of the project, run by the Pentagon’s research agency, Darpa, is to have a truck-launched hypersonic missile system capable of being fired in a highly mobile and rapidly deployable way. Both the US Army and US Marine Corps have existing vehicles for the weapon system. Michael White, in charge of hypersonics at the Pentagon’s research and engineering department, described the new weapon as one of the “transformational warfighting capabilities” under development. The second successful test was completed by the US Air Force when a rocket booster for the service’s air-launched rapid-response weapon (ARRW) was fired from a B-52H Stratofortress bomber off the coast of southern California, and reached the required speed of more than Mach 5. In a similar test in July last year the rocket booster failed to ignite and fell into the Pacific Ocean. Two other tests also failed. The ARRW will be the US Air Force’s first hypersonic missile. The booster test series has now been completed, allowing the whole weapon system to be fully tested later this year. Reports from Russia of a new medium-range anti-ship or “carrier killer” ballistic missile capable of hypersonic speeds named the weapon as Zmeyevik (meaning serpentinite, a type of rock). It has been under development for some time, according to Tass state news agency, and is intended for service with the Russian Navy’s coastal defence units. Medium-range ballistic missiles generally have a reach of between 620 and 1,860 miles. China has test-fired an anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile called YJ-21. It was launched from a Type 055 destroyer in April.