Speed of Sound Competition Getting Hot

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

A Mach 5-plus cruise missile is the US Defense Department’s “top technical priority” in the race for hypersonics dominance. Aerojet Rocketdyne has teamed with prime contractor Lockheed Martin to develop a cruise missile with Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, as its minimum goal.

In April, the US Air Force chose Lockheed Martin to design and build a prototype of a new hypersonic cruise missile that flies faster and farther than the X-51A. It’s to be called the “Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon.”

In addition to speeding up hypersonics research, the contract, which could be worth up to $928 million, is intended to “explore the art of the possible and to advance these technologies to a capability as quickly as possible,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said at the time.

In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted of his nation’s advances in hypersonics, showing off what he said was a Mach 10 hypersonic cruise missile that could fly over the South Pole to avoid U.S. northward-pointing defenses.

U.S. officials are skeptical of Putin’s claims. “The most significant advance by our adversaries has been the Chinese development of what is now, today, a pretty mature system for conventional prompt strike at multi-thousand kilometer ranges” with hypersonics, said US Army Col. Steve Warren.

Because of the top secret nature of the work, Warren said he could not discuss details on the propulsion system or development of the alloys needed to withstand the stresses of hypersonic speeds.