How China Overtaken the United States in the Race for Dreaded Hypersonic Weapons

The race for the development of hypersonic weapons seems to have passed a new stage with the recent test china, which shows his unexpected overtaking USA in this field of strategic competition between powers.

China in August, it tested a hypersonic glider – capable of reaching speeds of over 6,000 km / h – that circled the Earth in orbit before descending to its target, which eventually missed by about 30 kilometers.

This test shot, which the Financial Times newspaper unveiled in October and confirmed by the Pentagon, it forced the US military to acknowledge that China’s technological performance took them by surprise.

The Chief of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, compared this test with the launch in 1957 by the then USSR of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, which marked the beginning of the space race.

According to new revelations released on Sunday, the During its career, a Chinese hypersonic device fired a projectile that fell into the sea, again surprising the United States.

According to the Financial Times, “experts from Darpa, the Pentagon’s investigative agency, they do not know how China managed to fire a projectile from a vehicle that flies at hypersonic speed ”.

“It seems that the Chinese managed to control these effects of thermal and aerodynamic shock at hypersonic speed”, which requires “enormous computing capacities”, explains Joseph Henrotin, strategy researcher and editor-in-chief of the specialized journal DSI.

Henrotin also underlines the interest of its use as a bomber, since the essential characteristic of hypersonic weapons is not so much their speed as their ability to dodge anti-missile defenses, thanks to a less predictable trajectory than that of ballistic missiles.

“These recent tests constitute a huge technological leap for China, even if the United States is still far ahead in terms of global military technology,” Niklas Swanström, an expert on China and director of the Institute for Security and Development in Stockholm, abounds.

Hypersonic wind tunnel

“Even if they are shown to possess this technology, it is unlikely that they will be able to use it effectively in combat operations. But this should encourage the Americans and their allies not to underestimate Chinese capabilities and to develop countermeasures.“, Add.

China already presented in 2019 a hypersonic glide vehicle, the DF-17. This medium-range weapon (around 2,000 km) can carry nuclear warheads.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which recently equipped itself with a hypersonic wind tunnel, plans to launch a new facility next year to simulate flights at speeds up to 30 times faster than sound, according to Chinese state media.

USAFor his part, he does not have a hypersonic weapon in his arsenal, although he works on it. Darpa recently successfully tested its HAWC hypersonic missile, which uses oxygen from the atmosphere for its combustion.

The Pentagon also developed a hypersonic glider called the ARRW, but its first large-scale test failed in April.

Other powers, like Russia, also have hypersonic weapons or are trying to equip themselves with them, like France.

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