The United States has just successfully completed the final flight test of its HAWC hypersonic missile concept. The program is now mature enough for the US Air Force and its partners to develop different models of hypersonic vehicles.
On the US side, the pace of hypersonic weapons development is accelerating. After presenting a concept of the dronedrone hypersonique Mayhem par l’US AirAir Force, a few weeks ago, Darpa, the American organization which conducts military research, has just announced that the flight tests of the HAWC hypersonic missile concept have been successfully completed. This missile Hypersonic Airbreathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), designed by Lockheed Martin for the US Air Force Research Laboratory, flew at a vitessevitesse greater than Mach 5 (6,174 km/h), i.e. five times the speed of soundspeed of sound. No doubt because of the current tensions with the war in Ukraine and the case of Taiwan, we do not know the real speed that he was able to reach.
It must be said that, in this area, the few countries that have developed this type of missile often communicate at extremely high speeds in order to show their mastery of the technology. Russia, which claims to have used a hypersonic missile Kh-47M2 Kinzhal last March during a strike in Ukraine, does not hesitate to recall that it can travel 2,000 km at a speed of Mach 10.
The United States had also tested a gliderglider hypersonique AGM-183 Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) which was propelled at Mach 20. But, in reality, this race to theshallotshallot does not mean much, since, in mattermatter of speed, ballistic missiles can reach Mach 23 at peak. It is rather the holding of a high speed, associated with the maneuverability of the machine in flight, which characterizes a hypersonic missile. That of the Darpa was therefore able to evolve at a very high speed and at an altitude of nearly 18,300 meters over a distance of approximately 555 km.
Still far from operational
The missile is propelled by the engine scramjetscramjet from Aerojet Rocketdyne, i.e. the same ramjetramjet at combustioncombustion supersonic which was used to propel the ARRW glider and which the US Air Force also intends to exploit for its hypersonic drone project. This engine has been lightened as much as possible thanks to additive manufacturing. There would be 95% fewer parts compared to the initial versions of this hypersonic engine. This is about the only data that the US Air Force has released, no doubt, once again, due to current tensions. It was the same during the second flight test of this missile in mid-March.
In the press release, Darpa explains that, for this very last test, the scientists were able to collect enough critical data to refine the development of their technology and validate their model. If the program is not finished for all that, it will now make it possible to create missile prototypes based on this HAWC concept.
If the accession to a certain maturity in this program is a great leap forward, it is not for tomorrow that missiles and other hypersonic devices will be operational for the American army. For their part, the Russians and the Chinese already have this type of armament.
