U.S. efforts to catch up with China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons may be set back after Lockheed Martin’s air-launched missile suffered three consecutive test failures that left it on a tight schedule.
The Air Force still doesn't know what caused a December launch of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon to fail, but it still has time to wrap up flight tests by the end of fiscal 2022, Brig. Gen. Heath Collins said.
Introduction Hypersonic weapons are defined as able to travel at speeds above Mach 5 and can be broadly classified into two types: hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCM). The former is launched into the upper atmosphere via ballistic missiles. The HGV is then separated from the booster to glide/maneuver towards its target. The latter can be launched …