The Air Force expects to start test-flying the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile starting this fall, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Tests will iterate the design and continue until 2027, at which point HACM will transition to a major defense program ...
The contractor behind a program to use drones to capture data from hypersonic tests crashed an MQ-9 on loan from the Air Force last year, causing $16 million in damages, according to a new accident investigation report. The crash took place Jan. 18, 2023, at Southern ...
A flight test of an AGM-183A hypersonic missile over the central Pacific Ocean is expected at any moment, based on navigational warnings and movements of tracking aircraft to the Kwajalein Atoll area. The test may be the last for the ARRW, which the Air Force ...
Congress is mandating biennial updates on the Pentagon’s strategy for developing, buying, and fielding offensive and defensive hypersonic systems, according to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which is poised to pass both chambers this week. They also want a plan identifying overland test ranges ...
Sluggish testing is holding back U.S. efforts to develop and field new hypersonic weapon systems, and Congress must help the effort by funding new test capabilities and capacity, according to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and the NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute.
The U.S. still lags China and Russia in development and deployment of hypersonic weapon systems, and it will take a huge investment in education, test capacity and manufacturing capabilities to catch up, experts and members of Congress said in a streaming seminar broadcast by The ...
The Air Force has revived hypersonic sled testing, dormant for 18 years, in order to add another means to the limited portfolio of hypersonic test capabilities. Sled tests at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., demonstrated that hypersonic speeds can be achieved on a test track ...
As the Pentagon continues to aggressively expand its development of hypersonic weapons, officials will need to consider the “range of capabilities” the Defense Department actually needs, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told a Congressional panel.
The Air Force slashed the F-35 buy in its 2023 budget request to just 33 jets—15 fewer than it bought in 2022 and 27 fewer than 2021, saying it preferred to spend that money on other needed modernization programs and wait until the Block 4 ...
The first booster flight test of the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon failed April 5. In a release issued April 6, the service acknowledged the failure is a “setback” for hypersonic progress, but said the test still provided “valuable information” for the program’s ...
The Pentagon has so many hypersonics projects underway there aren't enough people to conduct them and not enough facilities to test them, Air Force chief scientist Richard J. Joseph said during a Dec. 17 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. His comments came on the ...
The Army and Navy jointly conducted a test of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body on March 19 over the Pacific Ocean. The test clears the way for design of an operational system to be ready by 2023. The Missile Defense Agency used the test to ...