US hypersonic weapons will be "released" ahead of schedule

"We will test hypersonic weapons sooner and more often than people thought,"CNBC NewsOctober 3 quoted a statement by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan.

According to Shanahan, the Pentagon is calculating the cost and quantity of hypersonic weapons the military requires as well as measures to build the defense industrial base to serve the production of this type of weapon.

"We are working hard, efficiently and will scale up production," Shanahan stressed, while affirming that this work requires a cooperative effort between the military branches.

The US Air Force, Army and Navy secretaries also signed a cooperation agreement in late July on a program to develop a hypersonic missile capable of penetrating the world's most advanced defense systems.

According to US Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, for more than 10 years, the Pentagon has been actively designing and building missiles with speeds above Mach 5 (6,174 km/h). With the cooperation of the military branches, this missile model could be tested in 2020 or 2021.

Hypersonic weapons often have speeds above Mach 5, about 6,000-12,000 km/h, and are capable of complex maneuvers while flying, making it impossible for enemy missile defense systems to accurately determine the trajectory to intercept.

China is believed to be leading the world in hypersonic weapons technology, at least in terms of actual battlefield applications. The DF-17 is the world's first missile system to use a hypersonic warhead, and is expected to be deployed by Beijing in 2020.

In his state-of-the-nation address on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin also introduced two hypersonic weapons, including the Kinzhal anti-ship missile complex capable of sinking warships from a distance of 2,000 km, and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle with a speed of up to 25,000 km/h and a range of 10,000 km.