X-51 Waverider
I found an interesting story today on Global Security Newsire that sheds some light on what the U.S. military is doing relating to hypersonic technologies. It seems that the goal is to deploy “rapid-strike, long-range conventional weapons” by 2015 that could hit any target in the world within 60 minutes:
The Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have joined efforts to build a Hypersonic Test Vehicle, an experimental apparatus upon which key technologies for the Conventional Strike Missile can be demonstrated and evaluated. The two organizations plan to conduct an initial flight assessment, using the Hypersonic Test Vehicle, in December.
“It is prudent to allow” the Air Force and DARPA “flight tests to proceed before committing to a specific PGS development/deployment decision,” Drey told Global Security Newswire.
Once it is built, the Conventional Strike Missile is expected to pair rocket boosters with a fast-flying “payload delivery vehicle” capable of dispensing a kinetic energy projectile against a target. Upon nearing its endpoint, the projectile would split into dozens of lethal fragments potentially capable against humans, vehicles and structures, according to defense officials.
The December test vehicle flight demonstration is to launch from a Kwajalein Atoll test site in the Pacific Ocean. During the test, the Defense Department would seek to “show whether or not the HTV can hold together and not fall apart, and that it can glide and [perform] controlled flight” at five times or more the speed of sound, said the prompt global strike consultant, who asked not to be named.
Read the full story.
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