Origanalist
03-21-2014, 10:37 AM
Coming soon to a wedding party somewhere....
by AWR HAWKINS 21 Mar 2014
The U.S. Army has just announced it will test its Mach-5 “hypersonic” strike missile—for the second time—in August.
If the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon works as designed, the ground combat branch could gain the ability to hit any spot on Earth with a devastating non-nuclear explosive—and with just a few hours’ notice.
AHW is such a potentially powerful new capability that the Navy could also acquire it, according to Army Gen. David Mann, head of the service’s Space and Missile Defense Command.
It all depends on the August test. “Based upon the results that come from that test, we’ll go ahead and … work closely with Office of the Secretary of Defense as to what they would like us to do, what the next steps are,” Mann told Congress.
The Pentagon has been trying for years to develop Mach-5 or faster munitions. So far the Army has had the most luck. The ground combat branch test-fired AHW for the first time in November 2011.
The test proved that America “is well along the path to solving many of the problems associated with sustained hypersonic flight,” said John Stillion, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment think tank.
The weapon launched from Hawaii atop a three-stage rocket and glided more than 2,000 miles to a test range in the Marshall Islands. The journey lasted only 30 minutes and “met all flight test objectives,” according to Debra Wymer, director of Space and Missile Defense Command’s technical center.
Army trackers recorded 800 gigabytes of data, Wymer reported.
By contrast, the Air Force has tried several time to get its Mach-20 Hypersonic Test Vehicle glider to work—without much success. Such high speeds impart awful stresses on a vehicle, requiring cutting-edge materials and design.
The flying branch also has the much slower X-51 hypersonic test munition, which boosts atop a rocket then fires a scramjet engine to sustain a speed of Mach 4.
http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver/Breitbart/Big-Peace/2014/03/21/HypersonicMissile.jpg
A B-52 carries the X-51 before its May 2013 launch. Boeing photo
continued at...https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ffcdd8b3fe68
by AWR HAWKINS 21 Mar 2014
The U.S. Army has just announced it will test its Mach-5 “hypersonic” strike missile—for the second time—in August.
If the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon works as designed, the ground combat branch could gain the ability to hit any spot on Earth with a devastating non-nuclear explosive—and with just a few hours’ notice.
AHW is such a potentially powerful new capability that the Navy could also acquire it, according to Army Gen. David Mann, head of the service’s Space and Missile Defense Command.
It all depends on the August test. “Based upon the results that come from that test, we’ll go ahead and … work closely with Office of the Secretary of Defense as to what they would like us to do, what the next steps are,” Mann told Congress.
The Pentagon has been trying for years to develop Mach-5 or faster munitions. So far the Army has had the most luck. The ground combat branch test-fired AHW for the first time in November 2011.
The test proved that America “is well along the path to solving many of the problems associated with sustained hypersonic flight,” said John Stillion, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment think tank.
The weapon launched from Hawaii atop a three-stage rocket and glided more than 2,000 miles to a test range in the Marshall Islands. The journey lasted only 30 minutes and “met all flight test objectives,” according to Debra Wymer, director of Space and Missile Defense Command’s technical center.
Army trackers recorded 800 gigabytes of data, Wymer reported.
By contrast, the Air Force has tried several time to get its Mach-20 Hypersonic Test Vehicle glider to work—without much success. Such high speeds impart awful stresses on a vehicle, requiring cutting-edge materials and design.
The flying branch also has the much slower X-51 hypersonic test munition, which boosts atop a rocket then fires a scramjet engine to sustain a speed of Mach 4.
http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver/Breitbart/Big-Peace/2014/03/21/HypersonicMissile.jpg
A B-52 carries the X-51 before its May 2013 launch. Boeing photo
continued at...https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ffcdd8b3fe68