The American hypersonic missile on tests reached a speed five times greater than the speed of sound, the Pentagon's Advanced Development Agency (DARPA) reported on September 27.
The rocket with the Northrop Grummann engine was built by Raytheon Corporation. The engine is powered by a mixture of hydrocarbon fuel and air.
According to the developers, the test of the weapon was successful, all the tasks were completed, including the integration of the rocket, testing the launch and safe undocking from the aircraft, starting the engines and cruising flight.
The rocket showed a speed of five mach, or five speeds of sound, which is about 6.2 thousand km / h in an oxygen-saturated atmosphere, which is best suited for launching such missiles.
Earlier, on September 21, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said that the United States is dissatisfied with the pace of development of hypersonic weapons programs against the background of a significant lag behind Russia and China.
Thus, the maximum speed of the world's first Russian-made hypersonic Zircon rocket is about nine speeds of sound (approximately 2.65 km/s at an altitude of 20 km, or more than 10 thousand km/h).
Also, the Russian Air Force is preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) "Sarmat". According to experts, "Sarmat" can deliver a separable head unit weighing up to 10 tons to anywhere in the world both through the North and South Pole.
On August 10, Ukrainian military expert Oleg Zhdanov suggested that the Sarmat missile system would have no analogues in the world. He noted that no air defense system will be able to intercept this missile.
At the end of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the Sarmat ICBM, the Zircon hypersonic missile and the new S-500 air defense system would soon be on combat duty. According to him, hypersonic weapons — Avangard and Dagger complexes - have already been put on combat duty.