Joseph Trevithick & Howard Altman
The U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy recently “initiated” a test of a hypersonic weapon, but the U.S. military won’t say whether or not it was a success, what specific system was involved, or even if there was an actual launch. Previous testing of an Army ground-based hypersonic weapon system it is developing in cooperation with the Navy, known as Dark Eagle, has been particularly beset by problems.
The Army has been hoping to begin fielding Dark Eagle within the next two months, around a year later than originally planned, and in the wake three scrubbed test launches last year. In June, the Pentagon did announced a successful test of a common hypersonic missile designed to be used in both the Army’s Dark Eagle and the Navy’s sea-based Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) weapon systems. To date, there has been no known full end-to-end test of the missile involving a production-representative launch system.
“The U.S. Army and Navy recently initiated a test of a conventional hypersonic system at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida,” a U.S. defense official told The War Zone in a statement. “This test was an essential benchmark in the development of operational hypersonic technology. Vital data on the performance of the hardware and software was collected that will inform the continued progress toward fielding hypersonic weapons.”
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