US successfully tests Raytheon hypersonic weapon in flight – Pentagon

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Reuters) – The United States has tested an air-breathing hypersonic weapon capable of reaching speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, marking the first successful test of this class of weapons since 2013, a the Pentagon announced Monday.

The test came as the United States and its global rivals ramped up their pace to build hypersonic weapons – the next generation of weapons that rob adversaries of reaction time and traditional defeat mechanisms.

In July, Russia said it had successfully tested a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile, a weapon President Vladimir Putin touted as part of a new generation of missile systems unrivaled in the world. Read more

The hypersonic breathing weapon concept (HAWC) free flight test took place last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said in a statement.

Hypersonic weapons travel through the upper atmosphere at speeds more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kilometers (3,853 miles) per hour.

“The missile, built by Raytheon Technologies (RTX.N), was dropped from an aircraft seconds before its Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) scramjet (supersonic combustion stele-engine) engine started,” DARPA said.

“The DoD (Department of Defense) has identified hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic capabilities as the highest technical priorities for the security of our country,” said Wes Kremer, president of the Missiles and Defense business unit at Raytheon.

“The United States and our allies must have the ability to deter the use of these weapons and the ability to defeat them,” he said.

In 2019, Raytheon partnered with Northrop Grumman to develop and produce motors for hypersonic weapons. Northrop’s scramjet engine technology uses the vehicle’s high speed to forcibly compress incoming air before combustion to enable sustained flight at hypersonic speeds.

“The HAWC vehicle performs best in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, where speed and maneuverability make it difficult to detect in a timely manner. It could strike targets much faster than subsonic missiles and has significant kinetic energy even without high explosives. “DARPA said in The Release.

Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington Editing by Dan Grebler and Mark Potter

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