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US Hails New Milestone in Development of Hypersonic Weapons:
In the US drive to acquire an operational hypersonic weapon, after the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) programme was canceled in February due to budget issues, Lockheed Martin had been pushing ahead with the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), with its first captive-carry test held in June 2019.
The US Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have completed successful captive-carry tests of two hypersonic weapon variants designed by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, the organizations announced in a press release on 1 September.
A captive-carry flight test is when missiles remained attached to a test aircraft for the duration of the flight. The method offers an opportunity to accumulate data about how the design, as well as the aircraft carrying it, will perform subsequent free-flight tests.
[...] Both companies, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, have designed the scramjet-powered hypersonic missiles as part of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program run by the Air Force and DARPA, writes Defense News.
"Completing the captive carry series of tests demonstrates both HAWC designs are ready for free flight," said Andrew Knoedler, DARPA's HAWC program manager, making no mention of the location of the tests or the aircraft used.
The success of the recent tests put the US Air Force one step closer to achieving a long-cherished goal of fielding a hypersonic cruise missile.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 03 2020, @04:26PM
> The US currently can hit anything anyway.
Europe is developing hypersonic for civilian use (SABRE). I don't know what the US capability is (I recall they have some sort of top secret space plane thingy?). Presumably other powers are also working on something.