Last month, the U.S. military successfully tested a rocket equipped with hypersonic weapon development components at the Wallops flight test facility in Virginia.
A senior U.S. admiral in charge of the project said China and Russia are pushing the U.S. to develop hypersonic weapons faster as the Pentagon seeks to speed up testing and research and avoid lagging behind.
"Until recently, we didn't have the real motivation to apply this technology to weapons systems. Navy Strategy Systems Project Director and Navy Lieutenant General Johnny Wolf said.
Wolf last month conducted two rocket tests in the military to collect hypersonic development data and was interviewed by CNN in an interview with CNN that China and Russia have developed weapons that the United States has not yet developed. Both tests have conducted about a dozen different experiments in different fields such as heat-resistant materials, high-end electronics and lightweight materials , all of which are necessary to successfully develop and deploy hypersonic weapons.
Russia has deployed its own hypersonic Kinzhal in Ukraine Missiles, which may be the first time such weapons are used in war. In a test last year, a Chinese hypersonic missile, , circled the world a week before hitting a target.
hypersonic weapons fly at a speed of more than Mach 5, or about 4,000 miles per hour, making it difficult to detect and intercept in time. Missiles can also maneuver and change altitude, allowing them to avoid the current missile defense system .
According to data from the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon requires $4.7 billion to be allocated for hypersonic research in the next fiscal year, up from 38 $100 million. The United States is developing a variety of hypersonic weapons programs across services, but a series of test failures have plagued some projects.
The Air Force successfully tested its Air-fired Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), but this came after three consecutive test failures. The Army and Navy Common Hypersonic Glide Body also suffered a summer of test failures in the first test of the entire system.
The U.S. Army plans to deploy long-range hypersonic weapons next year (LRHW), which will make it the first hypersonic system deployed by the military. The system uses a two-stage boost rocket to accelerate the gliding projectile to hypersonic speed. The gliding body then slides toward the target at a very high speed, using its kinetic energy as a weapon.
The U.S. Navy plans to deploy its own version of the system on the Zumwalt-class missile destroyer in 2025, and currently plans to deploy a version for submarine-launched hypersonic missiles by the end of this decade.
