WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th July, 2020) US President Donald Trump during a roundtable event at Southern Command on Friday reaffirmed that the United States is developing hypersonic missiles that are 17 times faster than what it has in its arsenal.
"We have things under construction that we're going to take a look at one day soon where we have missiles that go, I hear, 17 times faster than any other missile - the normal type at least," Trump said.
On June 30, Department of Defense Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization Mark Lewis said the United States is looking to conduct its first test flights of completed hypersonic prototype weapons by 2025 with deployable weapons by the second half of the decade.
The Defense Department plans to carry out at least 40 flight tests of hypersonic missiles over the Pacific Ocean in the next four years.
On May 15, Trump made the first public comments about the United States developing a hypersonic missile that would be 17 times faster compared to the fastest missile that the US military currently had available.
