Major threats: why U.S. 2020 defense budget massively pushes hypersonic weapons

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force 2020 defense budget push takes another step in an aggressive plan to prototype, test, and deploy hypersonic weapons on an expedited schedule -- to defend against enemy attacks by fast-tracking an ability to launch high-impact, high-speed attacks at Mach 5 -- five times the speed of sound. Warrior Maven reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

21 March 2019 -- "Hypersonics is such an important area, we have to push it through - soon," William Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, told an audience recently at an Air Force Association Symposium.

Roper emphasized that the hypersonics effort is focused on current emerging weapons, which are testing, being prototyped and quickly nearing operational status, but also on an "idea pipeline" to keep new developments emerging.

The Pentagon's 2020 budget is proposing a hypersonic weapons increase, citing the request this way - "Hypersonics weapons development to complicate adversaries’ detection and defense - $2.6 billion," Pentagon defense budget documents say.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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