US - New Hypersonic Weapon?

Army Successfully Tests Hypersonic Weapon Design

Well, the Army made it happen, it successfully its own hypersonic weapon prototype that could lead to a class of conventionally-armed missiles capable of striking any target on Earth in less than two hours.

The Advanced Hypersonic Weapon was launched from Hawaii this morning at 6:30 Eastern time and flew roughly 2,400  miles to Kwajelien atoll. No word yet on how fast the AHW glide vehicle, (the part that would carry a weapon), powered by a three-stage booster rocket, made the journey. The Army says it reached hypersonic speeds; that means it had to be flying at more than Mach 5 at some point.

The AHW stayed well within the Earth’s atmosphere, followng a “non-ballistic” trajectory as it sped toward its target. Why is that detail important? Here’s an excerpt from an interview I did with Boeing officials working on a similar project in September:

Basically, a ground-launched PGS weapon would cut a much lower and flatter path through the air than a nuclear-armed ICBM, something that would instantly show other nations that this isn’t preemptive nuclear strike.

“This is a depressed trajectory and if your were to track [the PGS’] ballistic profile” it’s much lower than a regular ICBM, said Boeing’s Rick Hartle during a briefing on Tuesday at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Md.

Today’s test was meant to “collect data on hypersonic boost-glide technologies and test range performance for long-range atmospheric flight. Mission emphasis is aerodynamics; navigation, guidance, and control; and thermal protection technologies,” reads a Pentagon press release on the flight.

Remember that the Air Force has been working on it’s own versions of this technology; experimenting with scramjet tech and a system that uses former Peacekeeper ICBM’s to launch a glide vehicle to hypersonic speeds. The Army’s less ambitious effort sounds like it is off to a better start, so far anyway.