The Biden administration supposedly kept in secret a hypersonic missile testing that reportedly took place in mid-March in order not to antagonize Russia further, a defense official cited by CNN on Monday has claimed.
The US military has cited the same reason when it canceled a few routine ICBM tests amid the crisis in Ukraine.
Lockheed Martin’s hypersonic missile designed for the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program was allegedly launched from a B-52 bomber off the west coast.
HAWC is run jointly by the US Air Force and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Although the speed of the projectile was not disclosed, it should have been at least Mach-5 – considered the low range for hypersonic weapons – and it traveled at an altitude of 20,000 m for more than 480 km.
It was the second reported successful test under the HAWC after DARPA tested last September a scramjet missile prototype produced jointly by Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman.
The Lockheed Martin prototype test was not publicized to avoid escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow.
It came days after Russia claimed it targeted an ammo warehouse in western Ukraine allegedly using its own hypersonic missile called Kinzhal, whose significance was downplayed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying it is not some sort of game-changer.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby commented on Kinzhal’s deployment days later, stressing it was hard to know what exactly the justification was for the launch since it targeted a stationary storage facility, while President Biden underscored that it doesn’t make much of a difference except it’s almost impossible to intercept.
US experts also argue that Kinzhal is an air-launched version of the Russian Iskander short-range ballistic missile i.e. a variation of an established technology as opposed to a revolution in hypersonic weaponry.
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