By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
The Pentagon has taken another step forward toward developing a hypersonic missile that can be used by both the Army and the Navy.
The two services recently did an end-to-end flight test of a hypersonic weapon from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. It provided data on the performance of the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) and Long Range Hypersonic Weapon All Up Around (LRHW).
“This flight test of the common hypersonic missile marks a milestone for our nation in the development of this capability,” said Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe Jr., the director of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, the lead designer for the project.
Hypersonic weapons can hit speeds over Mach 5 (3,836 miles per hour). Unlike ballistic missiles, they don’t follow a parabola-shaped trajectory, can maneuver on their way to a target and fly at low altitudes – all of which makes them difficult to defend against.
The Army-Navy joint initiative’s goal is to develop cold-gas launched missile system, using a Common Hypersonic Glide Body as the weapon’s nucleus. Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos, is under contract to build the glide body, while Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are developing the missiles.
The Army would use mobile land-based launchers for the LRHW, also known as Dark Eagle. The Navy plans to launch its CPS aboard Zumwalt-class destroyers at first and later achieve initial operational capability aboard Virginia-class submarines by fiscal year 2029.
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There have been a number of delays in the program.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the congressional watchdog, the Army will not be able to field its first complete LRHW battery until fiscal year 2025. The GAO says that’s based on an assessment of the test and missile production plans.
The US is in a race with both China and Russia to develop hypersonic weapons. Right now, Moscow and Beijing appear to be in the lead.
Russia reportedly fielded its first hypersonic missile weapons in 2019. That’s the same year that China is likely to have put its first hypersonic weapon in service – a medium-range ballistic missile designed to carry a hypersonic glide vehicle. Chinese commentators have said the weapon is armed with a conventional warhead, but US intelligence considers it able to carry nuclear weapons as well.
“China now has the world’s leading hypersonic weapons arsenal,” said Jeffrey McCormick, the senior intelligence analyst for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, in written testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee.
Earlier this year, Ukraine claimed it had evidence showing that Russia has used an advanced hypersonic missile for the first time during the two countries’ war.
In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian officials included a video showing pieces of debris that they said came from a Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which is said to be able to travel at Mach 8 (6,138 miles per hour). According to the US-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, that would make it invulnerable to missile defenses such as the US-made Patriot missile.
The Pentagon is fast-tracking a cooperative develop agreement between the US and Japan to engineer a Glide Phase Interceptor weapon, a next-generation technology designed to track and destroy hypersonic weapons.
