WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2020) The United States is looking to conduct first test flights of completed hypersonic prototype weapons by 2025 with deployable weapons by the second half of the decade, Department of Defense Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization Mark Lewis said on Tuesday.
"Our goal is to deliver by the mid-2020s." Lewis told an online audience at a meeting organized by the Hudson Institute. "We are looking at moving beyond the prototype stage by the second half of this decade. ... We are meeting the challenge in this area. Our potential adversaries should be under no mistake."
Earlier this month, the Defense Department said the United States plans to carry out at least 40 flight tests of hypersonic missiles over the Pacific Ocean in the next four years.
Lewis said the Defense Department has put in place a very aggressive program.
"We've got multiple programs at DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Project Agency] ...We will have a vastly increased rate of testing. We need to fly early [and] we need to fly often. In the next four years, we are looking at 40 different flight tests," he said.
On May 15, President Donald Trump told reporters that the United States was developing a hypersonic missile that would be 17 times faster compared to the fastest missile that the US military currently had available.
