Raytheon, Lockheed Clear Key Hurdle in Race to Develop Hypersonic Weapons
After years of prep work a new generation of high-speed weapons is about to take to the skies.
For the Pentagon, these missiles are a key part of a new arms race developing between the U.S., China, and Russia. For the contractors involved, they could be the key to thriving to an inevitable slowdown in defense spending.
The Pentagon's research arm has cleared rival prototype hypersonic missile designs made by Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin for free-flight testing later this year, a key milestone in the military's effort to acquire weapons capable of traveling more than five times the speed of sound.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Sept. 1 said that two variants involved in its Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) have successfully completed "captive carry" tests. Captive carry is when a larger aircraft carries a smaller craft, in this case a missile, without releasing it in flight, and it is used to test how well a new design holds up under the stress of flight.
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