THE US military will soon test a new hypersonic weapon that can hit targets at speeds of over 4,000 miles per hour.
In a statement, the Air Force announced plans to use a B-52 bomber to carry the experimental missile high into the air before firing it at a target.
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Following launch, a dummy second stage booster will deploy before disintegrating in the atmosphere, Live Science reports.
According to the Air Force statement, the trial of the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) will be carried out by April 4.
The test missile arrived at Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 1 and has been loaded onto a B-52H Stratofortress.
“The BTF-1 test vehicle is complete and is progressing through ground testing to verify its readiness for flight,” Brig. Gen. Heath Collins said.
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The test will be “followed by several additional booster and all-up-round test flights by the end of the year,” he added.
The missile, known as AGM-183A, is tipped to be the first hypersonic weapon in the US arsenal.
Hypersonic weapons travel so quickly that modern missile defence systems cannot intercept them.
They are described as hypersonic because they travel at least five times the speed of sound, or roughly a mile per second.
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The weapons can be modified to carry nuclear warheads.
Russia and China have both recently tested the high-speed systems, which are expected to proliferate over the next decade.
Analysts fear they will make war more likely by putting rival nations on “hair-trigger” states of readiness.
In its statement, the Air Force said that the upcoming test will demonstrate the booster’s ability to reach operational speeds and collect important data.
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It said the AARW prototype programme aims to deliver a working hypersonic weapon in the “early 2020s”.
Once deployed, the missile – developed by arms giant Lockheed Martin – will enable precise, rapid strikes on heavily defended targets.
“The weapon system provides combatant commanders the capability to destroy high-value, time-sensitive targets,” the Air Force said.
The US is in a race with Russia and China to deploy the first operational hypersonic missile.
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The weapons can be launched by land, sea and air, with the capacity to deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world within minutes.
Travelling with the speed of a ballistic missile, the technology has the advantage of being easily manoeuvrable, like a cruise missile.
This makes them rapid, accurate and difficult to detect.
Experts have previously warned that nations armed to the teeth with hypersonic missiles could cause destruction on an epic scale.
Richard Speier, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, a research organisation, said the high-speed weapons could lead nations to become “trigger-happy”.
Terrifying space weapons of the future
Here are three of the scariest…
Rods from God
- A strange but utterly terrifying weapon has been dubbed “rods from the God” and is based on the concept of creating man-made meteorites that can be guided towards the enemy.
- Instead of using rocks rods the size of telephone poles are deployed.
- These would be made out of tungsten — a rare metal that can stand the intense heat generated by entering Earth’s atmosphere.
- One satellite fires the rods towards the Earth’s atmosphere while the other steers them to a target on the ground.
- Reaching speeds of 7000mph they hit the ground with the force of a small nuclear weapon — but crucially creating no radiation fall out.
- As bizarre as it sounds, a US Congressional report recently revealed the military has been pushing ahead with the kinetic space weapons.
Molten metal cannons
- This intriguing idea is being developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
- It is called the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition or MAHEM.
- This game changing rail-gun can fire a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred miles per second by the most powerful electromagnets ever built.
- The molten metal can then morph into an aerodynamic slug during flight and pierce through another spacecraft or satellite and a munition explodes inside.
Space force ships
- Already the United States is powering head with its spacecraft, although China is busy developing one of their own.
- The top secret American XS-1 under development by DARPA.
- It can travel ten times the speed of sound and launch missiles.
- Meanwhile an unmanned craft is currently being developed in the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan province, which is also known as Base 29.
“Hypersonic missile proliferation would increase the chances of strategic war,” Speier said in a 2017 report on the technology.
“It would give nations an incentive to become trigger-happy.”
The RAND Corporation said it was deeply worried about the risk of small nations getting their hands on the technology.
It said China, US and Russia should commit to a “hypersonic missile nonproliferation” agreement immediately.
RAND warned that we have just a decade to “substantially hinder the potential proliferation of hypersonic missiles and associated technologies”.
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In other news, the US military is reportedly developing a laser weapon that can generate the sound of a voice out of thin air.
The US Army is also testing a 50-kilowatt laser weapon that incinerates drones, helicopters, planes and missiles.
And, here are the weirdest things lost by Uber passengers – including a jetpack and a bulletproof vest.
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