The Department of Defense has successfully conducted two hypersonic missile system tests recently, the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced earlier this week.
The Air Force said on Wednesday that it successfully conducted an Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon Booster Test Flight-3 a day earlier and that “the AGM-183A weapons system reached hypersonic speeds and primary and secondary objectives were met.”
The ARRW system is a boost-glide system that uses a rocket to accelerate a missile to hypersonic speeds before it then releases the glider that coasts to the target at hypersonic speed, according to CNN. It’s expected to provide the military with the capability to destroy time-sensitive targets and will enable rapid response strikes against defended land targets.
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It’s unclear how fast the ARRW flew, but officials said the test achieved its primary and secondary objectives and reached hypersonic speeds, which is Mach 5 or higher.
DoD’s development of hypersonic weapons has been a key priority, as the United States has fallen behind China, which has significantly increased its military capabilities in recent years.
The Chinese military conducted the first fractional orbital launch of an ICBM with a hypersonic glide vehicle last July, and it “demonstrated the greatest distance flown (~40,000 kilometers) and longest flight time (~100+ minutes) of any Chinese land attack weapons system to date,” according to a report titled “Challenges to Security in Space — 2022” from the Defense Intelligence Agency, released in April.
Also on Wednesday, DARPA announced that it successfully launched an OpFires missile test from a logistics truck as a medium-range missile launcher. The goal is for regular military trucks to have the ability to employ hypersonic payloads.
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“The OpFires program is a great example of how DARPA, in partnership with industry, is helping the Department of Defense facilitate rapid development and testing of advanced hypersonic technologies to accelerate the delivery of transformational warfighting capabilities,” said Michael White, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
