US successfully tests Raytheon air-breathing hypersonic missile, says Pentagon

The United States has been conducting a number of air-breathing hypersonic weapons tests in the past year. Since September 2021, they have conducted four tests with three attempts producing the desired results. On Monday, the Pentagon said that the military was able to successfully test an air-breathing hypersonic weapon made by Raytheon Technologies Corp. The statement released by the Pentagon stated that this was the third successful test since 2013 and the results from the test indicated that the weapon is capable of reaching speeds five times faster than the speed of sound.

Raytheon is currently competing with Lockheed Martin Corp to land the contract for the development of Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). The program is being run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA and they will be the deciding factor.

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"Advancing our nation's hypersonic capabilities is a critical national imperative, and this was an important step forward. Having back-to-back successful flight tests gives us even greater confidence in the technical maturity of our HAWC prototype," Wes Kremer, President of Raytheon's Missiles & Defense business unit, said according to Reuters.

In the four tests conducted by DARPA since last year, the weapons made by Raytheon was successful both times while Lockwood had one successful attempt and the other test was a failure.

"The vehicle flew a trajectory that engineers designed to intentionally stress the weapon concept to explore its limits and further validate digital performance models," the statement from Raytheon said in the aftermath of the successful test.

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