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China has surprised the Pentagon and the world almost a year after traveling around the world and conducting a hypersonic glide vehicle test that landed just 20 miles from its target.
“The important thing was that it scared everyone’s hell,” Senator Angus King told Fox News. “If things live in Kansas City, you’re saying you’re shortening 15 to 20 minutes from 2 to 3 minutes. That’s a qualitative change.”
Some Pentagon officials described it as a “sputnik” moment as the Chinese jumped over the United States with technology that could evade multi-billion dollar missile defenses and initiate an arms race.
Hypersonic weapons fly at a speed of at least Mach 5, are highly manoeuvrable, can change course during flight, and can fly 100 feet above sea level undetected.
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In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Senator King, who chairs the Senate Military Committee of the Strategic Forces, said the United States is still lagging behind its enemies.
Senators in Maine have accused the United States of fear of failure, unlike enemies like China.
“I think it’s probably five years behind when it comes to where the Chinese are,” King said. “They can fail the test. We have the idea that we need to do it exactly and every test needs to succeed. They have a series of failures and Each learned something. “
At almost every hearing, King asked the Pentagon why he wouldn’t invest any more in hypersonic technology.
“Frankly, the Chinese and Russians stood in front of us,” King said. “If our strategy in the Pacific is based on aircraft carriers and they are vulnerable to 6,000 miles per hour missiles, we have a problem.”
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The United States announced a failed weapons test in June. The Pentagon announced that the complete hypersonic system of a typical hypersonic glide body on a two-stage missile booster could not reach Mach 5 velocities at the test site of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii. did.
But on Tuesday, just days after the announcement of the failed test, the Pentagon emphasized the announcement of two recent successful hypersonic tests. One of these was the first ground-based hypersonic boost-glide system to be launched from a standard military truck at the White Sands missile facility in New Mexico, conducted by the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) in May. Shown a flight test.
More recently, the Air Force has successfully tested hypersonic missiles off the coast of Southern California. This missile could be launched from under the wings of a B-52 strategic jet bomber.
Russian scientists ridiculed the failed US hypersonic glide vehicle test last week, saying that the US design model for hypersonic weapons is “too complex.” Congress is calling for $ 292 million in a new defense bill to fund more research and development of hypersonic aircraft.
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Senator King introduced hypersonic weapons with a longbow that helped defeat the French when the British were unmanned at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and Genghis Khan soldiers shot from above the horses. Compared to Abumi, who made it possible to continue.
“Technology development often determines the outcome of conflict,” King said. “And for me, hypersonic aircraft are a breakthrough strategic difference in future conflicts involving this country, and we are lagging behind.”
At a confirmation hearing earlier this year, John Plum, the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for space policy, agreed.
“Sure, we seem to be late,” Plum responded to Senator King in January.
John Heiten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, first warned in November that the United States had lost a hypersonic race.
Recognizing the threat posed by these weapons, the U.S. military has no choice but to rely on hot air balloons to provide an early warning system to protect the country from hypersonic weapons that can evade the U.S. missile defense system. did not.Congress is demanding $ 27.1 million for this balloon defense in next year’s defense budget
Pentagon officials have publicly pushed back the story that the United States is “lagging”, and most of the US ballistic missiles and their vast nuclear weapons are already hypersonic, flying at five times the speed of sound by definition. Point out to do. .. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was asked at a press conference in November if China’s hypersonic test was a “sputnik” moment.
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“Well, those are terms I don’t use,” Austin said.
Austin bristled when asked why the Chinese could deploy medium-range hypersonic weapons but not the United States.
“I don’t know if they used those weapons, but they’re testing those weapons,” Austin said.