When it absolutely, positively, has to be there in an hour! :-)
The U.S. military had a successful test today of a hypersonic speed weapon, one designed to travel FIVE TIMES THE SPEED OF SOUND for long distances! The vehicle was launched at 6:30 AM EST (1:30 AM Hawaii-Aleutian Time) from Kauai, Hawaii and reached the Reagan Test Site, U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 30 minutes. CNN calculated that the vehicle traveled an average of 4,800 miles per hour in order to do so!
Nice, huh? 
Although the military released only a few details, the emphasis of the mission was on aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies. A three-stage booster system launched the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) glide vehicle and successfully deployed it on the desired flight trajectory – a nonballistic glide trajectory at hypersonic speed that carried it to the planned impact location at the Reagan Test Site.
According to the Press Release:
The AHW program is managed and executed by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command program office in Huntsville, Ala. The booster system and glide vehicle were developed by Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M. and the thermal protection system by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, Huntsville, Ala.
The Department of Defense is using AHW to develop and demonstrate technologies for Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS). As part of the CPGS effort, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency conducted boost-glide flight tests in April 2010 and August 2011, results from which were used in planning the AHW flight test.
You might recall that the last test, in August, of a vehicle called Falcon, failed its mission objectives but still traveled 20 times the speed of sound. That vehicle was “wing-shaped.”
The current vehicle was conical (cone-shaped).
The hypersonic technology is being developed as part of the DoD’s <Department of Defense’s> Conventional Prompt Global Strike (PDF) program, which is aimed at developing a system that could deliver a weapon strike anywhere in the world within an hour.
-Bill at
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