US to test hypersonic missile that can travel 20 times speed of sound

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The United States Air Force is preparing to test launch its new hypersonic missile that is said to be capable of flying 20 times the speed of sound.

The Air Force said that the booster test, which will take place sometime this month, will have a B-52H bomber carry an AGM-183A missile high into the air and launch it at more than five times the speed of sound.

The missile, an Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), would then deploy a dummy second stage that would ‘disintegrate’ somewhere in the atmosphere.

The upcoming test this month will only test the missile’s rocket booster rather than the missile as a whole.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-to-test-hypersonic-missile-that-can-travel-20-times-speed-of-sound/ar-BB1eEMJi?li=BBnb7Kz

[rsdsharp]

1. Is this Trump's Super Duper Missle?

[JHB]

15. It's the Air Forces missle...

Is it one Trump tried to take credit for?

Does an ursine evacuate in an arboreal environment?

[qazplm135]

2. force projection

is about to get easier and safer. Obviously, depending on who that force is used against and why, that can be a good or bad thing.

[OAITW r.2.0]

8. I think China and their cleint state, Iran already have them.

These projectiles have so much kinetic energy that the explosive impact is secondary to the physical hit. And ships in the Persian Gulf, especially in the Hormuz straits have literally seconds to react to a strike. Nothing "safe" about hypersonic missiles. The USN has a defense against an isolated attack, but a multi-vectored attack would be horrible.

Google Dongfeng-17

[qazplm135]

11. I'm not convinced

either of them have it to the tech level we do, or that we are defenseless against such weapons.

And there is a safety attached to being able to address threats from halfway across the planet. How it's used of course depends greatly on whether that's a good or bad thing.

[OAITW r.2.0]

13. OK, I'm saying technology shrinks reaction time in the Straits of Hormuz.

I've got a nephew manning a 40mm robotic gun in the Gulf right now....I hope smart people don't do stupid things.

[qazplm135]

16. thankfully

while Iran does bad things, they aren't suicidal. They aren't going to directly challenge the US.

[Miguelito Loveless]

3. If this works

carriers are the new battleship.

[dameatball]

7. Seems like it.

[TexasTowelie]

4. Does it explode at the end like a SpaceX test rocket?

We need to get our money's worth.

[Red Mountain]

9. Probably not

one would expect a high explosive warhead.

For the money.

Given what it will cost in development and production it would probably be far cheaper to pay SpaceX to make this a reality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment#Project_Thor

[dameatball]

5. I'm probably odd, but when I see stuff like this I always wonder if they already are operable.

[Takket]

6. wow that's almost half the speed a negative article about a democrat travels.

[RainCaster]

10. Something doesn't smell right here

The missile gets launched from a B-52, right? Definitely a sub-sonic large bomber. So how is it launched at Mach 5? I must have missed something here. I'm not buying this.

[qazplm135]

12. I mean it's a rocket basically

it's going to go real fast, real...well, fast.

[JHB]

14. It's carried aloft by the subsonic B-52, then dropped and its own engines cut in.

X-15s did the same thing 60 years ago. You've probably heard of one of their pilots, Neil Armstrong.

I suspect misleading writing or poorly-understood adaptation of the technical description: Since it mentions a second stage bringing it to hypersonic speeds, I suspect it's the first stage that accelerates it from subsonic to Mach 5, not Mach 5 straight off the B-52.

[Towlie]

17. A Zen koan: "What is the sound of a AGM-183A missile coming straight at you?"

 
←

If there's no one alive to hear the sound when it arrives, does it make a sound?

[robbob]

18. My math may be off, but I think that means this missile

can circumnavigate the earth in just over 1.5 hours? Let me know when they apply this technology to commercial air flight; I might finally get around to visiting the far east and New Zealand...