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The United States tested an advanced hypersonic missile system last week that will “offer next generation capability” to the US military, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said on Monday. The test flight comes just a few months after Russia tested a similar missile. The US missile system, called a “Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept” (HAWC), was developed by the aerospace and defense giants Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman. During the test, which was carried out in partnership with DARPA and the US Air Force last week, the missile was released from under the wing of an aircraft, and...

Notes Griffin further, in terms of hypersonic missile development, “The rest of the world is not stupid, and they are catching up to us. And, in some areas, have caught up.” Hypersonic vehicles can travel at speeds up to 5,500 miles per hour (hypersonic is considered five times the speed of sound or Mach 5). Currently, there are no missile defense systems that are agile enough to successfully target a hypersonic missile; in fact, current missile defense systems are vulnerable to spoofing by decoys and could also be rendered ineffective with electronic warfare. If you add the element of super-speed,...

On Wednesday morning, a US Air Force X-51A Waverider missile sustained speeds of Mach 5 for more than 200 seconds, the US Air Force has announced. The X-51A Waverider, which was launched over the southern California coast, is powered by next-gen scramjet technology.

Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK - News) announced today that it successfully completed testing for a new class of hypersonic propulsion systems that will enable High Speed Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to travel long distances at velocities more than five times the speed of sound. The most recent tests involved flight-weight, fuel-cooled Thermally Throated RamJet (TTRJ) technology built with conventional materials and manufacturing processes, and burning readily-available JP-10 jet fuel. This long-duration testing was funded by the U.S. Air Force and conducted at ATK's Ronkonkoma, N.Y. facility. This latest test series incorporates lessons learned during the design, manufacture and...

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