Posted on 12/21/2021 7:31:32 PM PST by elpadre
The US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) signed a contract this month with Stratolaunch to develop the Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle to simulate Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons.
Dr Daniel Millman, chief technology officer of Stratolaunch, stated that the company aims to provide the MDA with “a threat-representative and threat-replicating target that allows them to understand how to engage and intercept hypersonic threats.”
He did not reveal further details about the company’s contract with the MDA. Hypersonic weapons are designed to defeat current missile defense systems by flying at five times the speed of sound and performing evasive maneuvers during their terminal phase.
Stratolaunch is now in the process of developing its Talon-A hypersonic testbed, which aims to make hypersonic testing more routine. It is a highly-instrumented Mach-6 vehicle designed to collect flight data during testing. At present, the company is building two such vehicles, namely TA-0 and TA-1.
They are designed to be launched from the company’s Roc carrier aircraft, are capable of long-duration hypersonic flight and can perform autonomous landing and take-off from conventional runways.
Stratolaunch aims to start power-on testing of its Talon-A test vehicles by year-end, conduct hypersonic test flights in 2022, and start hypersonic testing services for government and commercial customers in 2023.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
and more:
“..The recent setbacks prompted an admission from US Space Force General David Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations, that the US has fallen behind China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons.
The US Army is not slated to field its first hypersonic weapon until 2024, while the US Navy aims to arm a destroyer with hypersonic weapons in 2025 and equip its Virginia-class submarines with them in 2028.
In contrast, China has been testing hypersonic weapons since 2014, and has fielded the DF-17 hypersonic missile since 2019, which can carry nuclear or conventional anti-ship warheads....”
Hey! Let’s tell everyone all about this! Geeze.
Lasers would be the way to go.
A day late and a dollar short. Based on recent development over a Putin’s NATO ultimatum it seems like Biden is planning a global thermonuclear war as early as January 2022, and all of it to distract from failure his presidency is.
If the Asia Times knows about this, don’t you think the Chicoms do, too?
“...don’t you think the Chicoms do, too?...”
There is no doubt in my mind that the massive Chinese espionage network will have all of the MDA developments on the Chinese president’s desk before it reaches the US president’s desk.
Leading from behind and trying to catch up 🤪
I dunno man. Wait, are you talking about space based ones?
So Biden is planning one of those because his presidency is not going as planned. Nice guy.
Nah, they probably don’t read that. The wingdings are different.
Think lazers there boys, not m-16’s
Laser weapons — the only thing that can go faster than a hypersonic missile. OUR hypersonic missile won’t even drop from the wing of a B52 launch platform.
Unless it’s raining when they attack you mean.
Or foggy.
I’m pretty sure that the chicoms have both the DOD and Stratolaunch infiltrated sufficiently so that the effort will be either a circular-firing squad-like effort, or a zero-sum effort...
Throw in Clinton’s early 1990’s sign off on reducing our national boundary waters to 12nm, and how long would it take to a hypersonic missile to reach DC and NY?
And that wasn’t enough, so the Clinton/Obama manchurian’s then gave our hypersonic and laser tech to Moscow (think Skolkavo)
The State is collapsing.
Too long.
“If the Asia Times knows about this, don’t you think the Chicoms do, too?”
Its hard to keep secrets when everybody is a globalist. Look at all the foreigners running around universities, businesses, non profits, government, etc.
When great power nations “mix it up” in warfare, there usually isn’t a great disparity in weaponry. Some people can’t accept that our enemies our smart and industrious, so everything was stolen or reverse engineered, from their point of view.
I can picture it now, An Egyptian Pharoah loads up his best war chariots, with his best soldiers, to “kick ass” on the Hittite King and his soldiers.
The battle barely begins and the Egyptians are all asking the same question:
Where did the Hittites get all those “T-34 war chariots?”
Balance of power has been around for awhile, so has underestimating enemies and their technology. We do so at our own risk.
The U.S. is planning to match the Chinese capability? Are the Chinese required by some cosmic source to stop their R&D? By the time our defenses are ready, I assume the Chinese will have something new and better and we’ll still be behind the 8 ball.
Let’s instead do R&D to come up with a superior weapon system!
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