US Air Force conducts successful hypersonic weapon test

WASHINGTON: The US Air Force said it had conducted a successful test of a hypersonic weapon, which flew at five times the speed of sound.

The test was conducted on Saturday off the coast of Southern California when a B-52 bomber released an Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), the Air Force said in a statement.

“Following separation from the aircraft, the ARRW’s booster ignited and burned for expected duration, achieving hypersonic speeds five times greater than the speed of sound,” it said.

The 419th Test Squadron and Global Power Bomber Combined Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California conducted the test. “Our highly-skilled team made history on this first air-launched hypersonic weapon,” Lt. Col. Michael Jungquist, the 419th FLTS commander and GPB CTF director, said in a statement.

The Air Force’s Program Executive Officer for Weapons, Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, praised the team in a statement for “overcoming the past year’s challenges” and getting to this success. “We are ready to build on what we’ve learned and continue moving hypersonics forward,” Collins said.

The Army, Navy, and DARPA also maintain hypersonic weapons programs. China and Russia have developed hypersonic weapons, and US defense officials have said that Russia has used hypersonics weapons an estimated 10 to 12 times in its invasion of Ukraine.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told Congress last week that the way the Russians are using hypersonics hasn’t given them much of a battlefield advantage so far.

“Other than the speed of the weapon in terms of its effect on a given target, we are not seeing really significant or game-changing effects to date with the delivery of the small number of hypersonics that the Russians have used,” Milley said.

The United States is not alone in developing hypersonic weapons, whose speed and maneuverability make them difficult to track and intercept. China’s foreign ministry denied in October that it had conducted a weapons test.