The Air Force's Next Wonder Weapon: Missiles Faster Than Mach 5
But will Russia or China beat America to it?
David Axe [2]
For its part, the Pentagon has pursued several parallel development paths for hypersonic weaponry. The Defense Department spent $108 million on hypersonics research and development in 2016 and $378 million in 2016. The department’s 2018 budget request includes $292 million for hypersonics research. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Air Force and Army have all tested “boost-glide†vehicles that launch atop rocket boosters then glide, unpowered, at hypersonic speeds. Most of the test flights have ended in failure.
Spurred by developments in Russia and China, the U.S. Air Force is taking steps toward acquiring a hypersonic surface-to-air missile capable of traveling faster than Mach 5.
Source URL (retrieved on December 26, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-air-forces-next-wonder-weapon-missiles-faster-mach-5-23800
