The US Army has missed its deadline for getting its Dark Eagle hypersonic missile fielded. The troops responsible for using the weapon are trained and ready, Bloomberg reported yesterday, but the missile itself isn’t ready for use. And while the Army as recently as last month told Bloomberg News that it planned to field the weapon by the end of 2025, the Army acknowledged this week that it missed that deadline, and it is “on track for completion in early 2026.”
Bloomberg notes that the Army on Dec. 17 announced “a significant advancement of its military capabilities” when it activated a battery that operates the hypersonic missile, which is known as Dark Eagle. But it didn’t mention at the time that the missiles weren’t ready.
What we can understand from the Bloomberg report is that the schedule for the Dark Eagle deployment keeps slipping because of technical problems with the missile.
Aside from fielding, questions about the missile’s combat effectiveness remain unanswered, Bloomberg reports. The Pentagon’s test office told Bloomberg in October it still had “not conducted an end-to-end operational assessment” of the system and that it didn’t have data to evaluate the weapon’s “operational effectiveness, lethality, suitability, and survivability.”
