Washington: The US Defense Research Organization (DARPA) has announced that it has recently successfully completed the second test flight of its "air-breathing hypersonic missile".
This missile can fly at 5 times the speed of sound (Mach 5), that is, it can reach a distance of 6100 km in an hour.
The missile was developed by Lockheed Martin under the DARPA's Hypersonic Air Browsing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program, which has been running for several years.
The DARPA press release states that the "weapon" was launched from another aircraft at an altitude of 65,000 feet, where it gained hypersonic speed. And flew 300 knots (555.6 km).
The missile was first tested in September 2021, but the design was slightly different, while it was developed by another company.
The US media says that the new experiment was carried out last month, in March 2022, but the details were not released due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Explain that air-breathing missiles use in-flight air to burn fuel and gain extraordinary speed.
The project, dubbed the "Hypersonic Air Braiding Weapon Concept" (HAWC) for the US Air Force under DARPA, has been going on for at least the last 40 years, with the aim of developing jet engines capable of launching missiles, rockets. , Drones and fighter jets can reach "hypersonic" at least 5 times the speed of sound.
