Edwards AirForce Base is and will be testing the most weapons since the 1960s. There are upgrades to most of the old planes, new versions and new weapons. The B-21 Raider bomber. Five dedicated T-7A test aircraft that will be put through its paces over the next two years. Eight or more B-52 aircraft will …
Recent hints that Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division may have already delivered an advanced new spy plane to the United States Air Force have prompted a resurgence in speculation about a secretive aircraft known to many as the SR-72. The most likely scenario is that a lot of money was spent on publicly and secretly …
In December, 2022, Leidos ($13.7B annual revenue fortune 500 company) was awarded a $334 million contract to assist the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in developing an air-breathing hypersonic system. The Expendable Hypersonic Multi-mission ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and Strike program, better known as Mayhem, will span a 51-month period of performance. The …
There are many articles and reports from Newsweek or other media sources that complain that the US military is behind China and Russia on hypersonic weapons. This is because Russia and China have rushed to deploy some hypersonic warheads boosted on regular rockets. China and Russia each have some hypersonic glide missiles. The warheads are …
In May 2023, Oleksandr Ruvin, director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, displayed parts from a Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missile, shot down by a Ukrainian air defence unit. U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles were used to thwart some or all of the attempted strikes. It happened 10 days after the military said it …
Before Russia’s war with Ukraine started about 2 years ago, Russia and Putin bragged about their new hypersonic missiles (Kinzhal) and its new SU-57 stealth fighter. The new weapons were supposed to be unstoppable. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 21 October 2023. Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of …
The US Air Force has given the first look at the the Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. This will be a hypersonic missile with a supersonic ramjet engine that is scheduled for deployment around 2027. Drawings of the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile are below. The scramjet propelled the missile at “a speed greater than …
Boeing will develop and test technologies a hypersonic interceptor prototype for DARPA’s Glide Breaker program as part of a four-year effort. Boeing will perform computational fluid dynamics analysis, wind tunnel testing and evaluation of aerodynamic jet interaction effects during flight tests. Hypersonic interceptors will destroy a threat traveling at over five times the speed of …
Lockheed CEO James Taiclet said Ukrainian forces the Patriot—invented in the 1970s but upgraded many times to shoot down a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile. This was done in May, 2023. Software upgrades can sometimes enable an existing system to deal with a more advanced threats. The Defense Department is still holding too many competitions in …
The US Navy DDG(X) program wants next-generation guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) to replace the Navy’s Ticonderoga (CG-47) class Aegis cruisers and older Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class Aegis destroyers. The US Navy plans to start buying the first DDG(X) in FY2032. The Navy’s proposed FY2024 budget requests $187.4 million in research and development funding for the program. …
Reaction Engines in the UK have been developing a space plane for two decades and they made progress on the core technology. The Foreign Comparative Testing campaign was a success. Reaction Engine’s joint U.S. and UK team achieved over 10 megawatts of transferred thermal energy using the same style of precooler tested under the HTX …