https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/12/russia-having-trouble-building-hypersonic-weapon-putin-hyped.html
And
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659602274/amid-arms-race-fears-the-u-s-russia-and-china-are-racing-ahead-with-a-new-missil
Prototype Video: https://youtu.be/MEQtVwHnzeA
President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, is in Moscow for a second day Tuesday, to discuss the U.S. intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The end of the 31-year old treaty is a sign that world powers may be returning to an arms race mentality.
But it’s not the only one.
Over the past year, the U.S., China and Russia have all stepped up efforts to develop a new kind of missile, a weapon that can fly faster and farther than almost anything in existence.
Known as a hypersonic weapon, it would travel at five times the speed of sound or more. It could strike at a target while evading missile defenses and hit almost without warning deep inside enemy territory.
In March, Russia announced it had tested a hypersonic missile.
The past year has seen a flurry of hypersonic testing. In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his nation had successfully tested a hypersonic weapon known as the Kinzhal, the Russian word for dagger.
In August, China said it had conducted the first successful tests of a hypersonic prototype called Starry Sky 2. It flew for more than five minutes and reached speeds above 4,000 mph, according to state media.
These programs are just getting started, says James Acton, a physicist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has studied hypersonics.
“Over the next few years we’re likely to see a lot of testing,” Acton says.
Last month, Mike Griffin, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said he was worried the U.S. was losing its edge in hypersonics.
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“We did the groundbreaking research. They’ve chosen to weaponize it. We need to respond,” Griffin said at a forum on missile defense on Capitol Hill.
The U.S. is now in the process of stepping up its hypersonic research. This year, the Air Force awarded $1.4 billion in contracts to Lockheed Martin to begin working on air-launched hypersonic weapons. Other agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, are also working on hypersonic weapons.