Raytheon Succeeds In Test Of Hypersonic Weapon, Pentagon Confirms

The United States has successfully tested a Raytheon Technologies Corp. air-breathing hypersonic weapon capable of speeds faster than five times the speed of sound, making this the third successful test of the weapon since 2013, Mike Stone reported for Reuters late on Monday, July 18, 2022.

Photo Insert: A rendering of Raytheon's hypersonic missile

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) runs the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) development program. Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon are competing for the contract.

Air-breathing vehicles utilize atmosphere-captured air for sustained propulsion.

Since September, there have been four air-breathing hypersonic missile tests. Raytheon's product has passed both tests, whereas Lockheed's has passed one and failed the other. In the upper atmosphere, hypersonic missiles travel at speeds of around 6,200 kilometers (3,855 miles) per hour.

"Advancing our nation's hypersonic capabilities is a critical national imperative, and this was an important step forward. Having back-to-back successful flight tests gives us even greater confidence in the technical maturity of our HAWC prototype," the president of Raytheon's Missiles & Defense business unit, Wes Kremer, stated.

During the flight test, after releasing HAWC from an aircraft and accelerating to hypersonic speeds using the scramjet engine, Raytheon stated that "the vehicle flew a trajectory that engineers designed to intentionally stress the weapon concept to explore its limits and further validate digital performance models."

This represents the third successful test of a series of hypersonic missiles under developed by various US programs. After a failed test flight on June 29 of a different type of hypersonic missile, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, these tests have been successful.

The United States and its worldwide foes are accelerating the development of hypersonic weapons, the next generation of weapons that deprive opponents of reaction time and conventional defeat mechanisms.

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