The Congressional Research Service issued a report this past week expressing concern that the United States has yet to deploy a hypersonic weapons system while China and Russia have deployed at least one each. The document, Sputnik reports, points out that Russia and China have already “likely fielded operational hypersonic glide vehicles –potentially armed with nuclear warheads,” while U.S. hypersonic programs “are not being designed for use with a nuclear warhead” and are nowhere near reaching operational status.
The report goes on to indicate that the current U.S. military budget includes $3.2 billion in outlays for hypersonic weapons research, while the request for fiscal year 2022 requests an additional $600 million. On top of that, the Missile Defense Agency has made a separate request for $247.9 million for hypersonic defense. The Pentagon has not yet “established any programs of record for hypersonic weapons,” nor made “a decision to acquire” such arms, the paper adds. Instead, the military has opted to continue to formulate and evaluate prototypes, system concepts and mission sets.
TASS reported July 17 that state trials for Russia’s newest Zircon hypersonic missile from a surface carrier will begin in August. TASS cites a source at the military-industrial complex as saying, “The first launch from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate within the state trials is planned for the first part of August. The second part of August will see flight trials of Zircon from the Severodvinsk nuclear submarine.”
