(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- According to the Pentagon, the United States has successfully tested a Lockheed Martin booster which is designed for use in hypersonic missiles.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that the US Air Force conducted two successful tests of Lockheed Martin’s Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon booster on Tuesday off the coast of California.
The ARRW booster was carried beneath the wing of a B-52H bomber before it was launched.
This comes as good news after the US has faced a string of failures in its hypersonic missile program.
Last year, China successfully tested a hypersonic weapon that orbited the planet before reaching its target. Russia, meanwhile, became the first nation to use hypersonic weapons when it launched the Iskander and Kinzhal missiles at Ukraine.
Meanwhile, three consecutive tests the Pentagon conducted for the Lockheed Martin air-launched missile booster failed.
In a statement last week, Lockheed Martin said Tuesday’s booster test was the second successful test, demonstrating the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon booster’s ability “to reach and withstand operational hypersonic speeds.”
In the three failed tests, the booster did not detach from the plane’s wing.
According to Air Force Brigadier General Heath Collins, having now completed the booster test series, the Air Force is ready to move on to “all-up-round testing later this year.”
Separate hypersonic missile tests conducted using Operational Fires (OpFires) have been successfully carried out both in May and again last Tuesday.
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s OpFires is a ground-launched system that will “rapidly and precisely engage critical, time-sensitive targets while penetrating modern enemy air defenses.”
According to DARPA, last Tuesday was the first flight test of the ground-based hypersonic boost-glide system designed to be launched from a standard military truck.
One official told CNN that there will be further tests on the system later this year.
Hypersonic weapons, which travel at over five times the speed of sound (or 3,853 mph), are designed to travel in the upper atmosphere. The weapons can evade radar and are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
