The hypersonic race in Russia, the USA and China is reaching the home stretch. In a year and a half, the first serial cruise missiles will appear, capable of hitting targets at a speed of more than Mach 5, and in another ten to twenty years space planes will be created that can independently take off and go into orbit.
For several weeks now, there has been a slight panic in the US Department of Defense. Recently, our country has successfully launched a new hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile "Zircon", which is being developed by NPO Mashinostroyenia. "During the tests of the rocket, it was confirmed that its speed on the march reaches Mach 8," TASS reported, citing a source in the domestic military-industrial complex. This is the second message about the successful launch of Zircon. For the first time, the media reported about the tests of this complex in March last year. Then a high-ranking representative of the Russian military-industrial complex told RIA Novosti that the Zircons are already in the metal and their tests began with a ground launch complex. But that is not all. Five months prior to this launch, we tested another new hypersonic weapon, the 4202 Product. The rocket equipped with it was launched in November last year from the Dombarovsky positioning area in the Orenburg region. After a few minutes of flight at an altitude of about one hundred kilometers, the device separated from it, which at a speed of up to 15 Machs hit the target at the Kamchatka Kura training ground. Moreover, before entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, the device began to actively maneuver both in height and in course, after which it completed the so-called slide and collapsed almost vertically to the ground. Such an approach trajectory, coupled with a gigantic speed, is guaranteed to ensure a breakthrough of all existing and developing US missile defense systems. Now this product in the media is most often called the Yu-71 hypersonic aircraft. But in fact, this is nothing more than a prototype of the warhead of the new super-heavy ICBM "Sarmat", which will replace the famous RS-20 "Voyevoda" (SS-18 "Satan") missiles in the Strategic Missile Forces. Experimental work on such devices began in our country back in the 1970s. It was then that the first guided warhead "Mayak" was developed, which our designers wanted to install on the early versions of the "Voevoda". This unit was relatively easy to aim at the target using radio maps of the area and was equipped with a gas cylinder control system. In total, our country has conducted about several dozen test launches of missiles with "Mayak", but in the end it was decided to stop its development. Soviet designers considered that it was much easier to create a new warhead for the rocket without engines, with an aerodynamic maneuvering system. In flight, he was controlled with the help of deflected cones in the bow, which at hypersonic speeds provided him with all the same opportunities for maneuvering in height and in heading. But this development was also not completed due to the collapse of the USSR, although the designers carried out at least six tests. However, the technological groundwork received did not disappear: it was used at first in the creation of light ICBMs of the Yars and Rubezh types, and now the turn has come to a new heavy missile.
It is known that the Sarmat ICBM itself will be able to carry up to 16 nuclear warheads at a distance of up to 17 thousand kilometers. And to destroy it in the middle section of the trajectory, apparently, is not possible. The fact is that this ICBM will be capable of striking the territory of a potential enemy from various directions, including the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as the North and South Poles. The multiplicity of azimuths for approaching the target forces the defending side to build a circular system of radars and anti-missiles along the entire perimeter of the borders and along all routes of approach to them.
The November launch of the U-71 is the first successful test of this product that has become the property of the general public. And although at least another two years will pass before the adoption of the new Sarmat combat unit, as well as the missile itself, numerous Western experts have already started fanning hysteria. "Putin's worst missile", "Kremlin's last warning", "Devil in disguise" - these are just the most innocent definitions of Anglo-Saxon military analysts and journalists. But it is much more interesting how the new authorities in the White House and in Congress reacted to all these events. US President Donald Trump has already supported the intention of Congress to allocate about $ 400 billion over ten years only for the re-equipment of his country's nuclear forces and several billion more dollars for new developments in this area. And the head of the Pentagon, James Mattis, directly stated the need to speed up the creation of new offensive and defensive weapons, platforms and systems, including for work in outer space. The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by Republican Senator John McCain, who pledged to fight for additional funding to "create space systems that can protect American interests in space." Moreover, the US Missile Defense Agency has already been instructed to develop a program to combat "the growing threat from high-speed maneuvering missiles." “Offensive space control capabilities need to be considered in order to provide the reliable space operations that are essential to the fulfillment of our battle plans,” General Mattis said. All this means only one thing: the United States has firmly decided not only to militarize outer space, but also, most likely, to create and then deploy new hypersonic weapons there. It is these weapons that play a key role in the American concept of Prompt Global Strike (PGS), which, according to Pentagon strategists, is designed to provide Washington with an overwhelming military superiority over any country or even a group of states. But will Americans be able to achieve their goal?
With folded hands
Former head of the US Air Force Research Laboratory, Major General Curtis Bedke, in an interview with the Air Force Times, said that his country had not paid the necessary attention to all areas of hypersonic weapons development for a long time, which could not but affect the US military potential in the future. "The development of hypersonic technologies is not just important, but an inevitable process that must be taken seriously, otherwise you can be left far behind," Bedke said. Indeed, the Americans could not do anything even remotely resembling our "Sarmat". Back in 2003, the US Air Force, together with the DARPA agency, began implementing the FALCON (Force Application and Launch from Continental) program. Its goal was to create a ballistic missile with a hypersonic warhead in a non-nuclear design - CAV. It was assumed that this device weighing 900 kg will be able to independently maneuver in a wide range of heights and hit moving targets with an accuracy of several meters. The missiles, equipped with new warheads, were to be deployed on the coasts of the United States, outside the permanent bases of nuclear ICBMs. The locations for the dislocation of such carriers were not chosen by chance. The fact is that when this missile was launched, states such as Russia and China should have understood that it was not carrying a nuclear warhead. But this project did not receive any noticeable development. The US Department of Defense appears to have found it cheaper to upgrade the Peacekeeper three-stage missiles that were removed from combat duty ten years ago for the PGS targets. On the basis of this carrier, the Americans developed prototypes of the new Minotaur IV light missiles, which they equipped with an additional, fourth, stage. It is on this missile that the United States is now pinning its main hope in the implementation of the PGS program using ICBMs. However, the tests of the Minotaur IV are not going at all as the American military would like. The first launch of such a missile with a hypersonic warhead HTV-2 (Hypersonic Technology Vehicle) took place in 2010. The craft was launched aboard a Minotaur IV launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. At the same time, during the launch, the launch pad completely collapsed. According to the flight plan, the device itself was supposed to fly a little over seven thousand kilometers in half an hour and splash down near the Kwajalein atoll. But that did not happen. It is believed that the warhead was able to develop a speed of up to Mach 20 in the upper atmosphere, but communication with it was lost, because of which the testers could not receive telemetric information. The most likely reason for the failure of DARPA called the lack of a control system, namely the incorrectly set center of gravity of the rocket, as well as insufficient mobility of the elevators and stabilizers. Because of this, the rocket in flight began to rotate around the longitudinal axis, but the control system did not allow to compensate for the deviation and align the course. And after the rotation reached its limiting value, the experimental apparatus collapsed and fell into the ocean - this happened in the ninth minute of the flight. And although the designers seem to have managed to eliminate these shortcomings, during the second launch the story with the destruction of the launch pad and the loss of telemetry repeated itself. True, this time the device was able to hold out in flight much longer - about twenty-five minutes. Nevertheless, the Pentagon decided to postpone the adoption of the Minotaur IV into service indefinitely. According to official statements by the US military, this system is still in development, and its final appearance has not been formed.
Thus, the success of the Americans in creating hypersonic maneuvering units for ICBMs seems to be very modest. And the level of technology they have achieved in this particular area barely reaches the level of late Soviet developments. Moreover, there are very good reasons to believe that the United States is losing here not only to Russia, but also to the third participant in the hypersonic race - China.
Over the past four years, China has conducted seven tests of its new WU-14 (DF-ZF) hypersonic unit. And only one of them, the second in a row, ended in an accident. All other launches were successful. The last such launch took place in April last year. Then the Dong Feng 41 (DF-41) ICBM was launched from Shanxi province in central China and entered the upper atmosphere, where it separated WU-14, after which it glided down, hitting a target in western China - at a distance of several thousand kilometers from the site launch. According to American intelligence, the speed of the WU-14 in a separate section of the trajectory reached Mach 10. The Americans themselves believe that the PRC will equip its DF-31 and DF-41 missiles with new warheads, which will increase their engagement range from 8-10 thousand km to 12 thousand km. After China has worked out and fully mastered this technology, it will have very effective weapons capable of overcoming all existing missile defense systems. But we must not forget one more important nuance. According to the American military expert Richard Fisher, the progress made by the Chinese in the field of hypersonic technologies will naturally intensify the research in this country in the field of anti-ship hypersonic missiles. Already, we can talk about the imminent appearance of a new-generation Chinese anti-ship missile - the DF-21 - with a range of up to 3,000 km, Fischer said.“China may well complete the development of the first version of such a device in a year or two. And in a few years' time it will be accepted into service,”the American expert is sure. If China does create a hypersonic anti-ship missile in the coming years, this will fundamentally change the balance of power in the South China Sea, a theater of military operations strategically important for the PRC, where the US presence is still very large. It is no secret that China has been actively expanding its military presence in this region for several years, in particular, it is building artificial islands around the rocks of the Spratly archipelago and creating a military infrastructure there - basing and refueling points for surface ships in the middle ocean zone - and even built an airfield for fighter aircraft. This is done primarily in order to fully control the main sea route passing through the Malacca Strait, through which almost half of all imported oil arrives in the PRC and up to a third of all Chinese goods are exported. The Strait of Malacca is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. It has been dominated by pirates for several decades, attacking tankers and bulk carriers. And nearby, in the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern coast of Sumatra, separatists are striving for power, who also do not hesitate to attack ships passing through the Strait of Malacca. But the most important thing is that about a thousand kilometers from this strait are the very Spratly Islands, whose belonging to China is disputed by Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and even tiny Brunei. In the same area, at least one aircraft carrier group of the US Pacific Fleet is constantly on duty. The Americans do not recognize that Spratly belongs to China and consider the entire area around these islands to be an international free zone, in which warships from different countries may be located. “By piling up islands and creating bases there, China is actually using the long-standing Soviet strategy of creating protected areas,” says Maxim Shepovalenko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST). - The creation of hypersonic anti-ship missiles, capable of withstanding large aircraft carrier formations, fits well into this strategy. It is possible that this is generally the main idea of testing hypersonic weapons, which is now being carried out by China. However, the Chinese themselves are very florid about this. So, in an interview with China Daily in May last year, Professor of the Missile Forces Command College of the NAOK Shao Yongling said that the tested hypersonic device could not initially be created to engage mobile targets such as aircraft carriers. Allegedly, the plasma cloud forming around it in flight interferes with the operation of the correction and guidance sensors to moving targets. And at the moment, Chinese designers do not have options for solving this problem, Yonglin said. However, nothing prevents them from working on this problem and ultimately achieving the desired result. “In any case, given the current level of technology development in China, this does not look impossible,” says Maxim Shepovalenko. This simply cannot but worry the Americans. According to Mark Lewis, head of a research group at the US Air Force, Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons are challenging American military power. “While the Pentagon was idle, the likely adversaries launched feverish activities and are already testing their missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads in the future,” he says.
Obviously, in this situation, the United States will try with all its might to reduce the lag behind Russia and China in the field of creating maneuvering hypersonic units for ICBMs. It is already known that of the 400 billion dollars that Congress intends to allocate for the rearmament of the US strategic offensive forces, about 43 billion will be spent on the modernization of silo-based missiles. The Americans will almost certainly try to bring to a logical conclusion the modernization of Minotaur IV missiles and the creation of new warheads for them. But Washington intends to spend much more money on the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, as well as their carriers, including space platforms. It is here that the United States has achieved its most impressive success.
Threat from orbit
The first serious experiments to create hypersonic cruise missiles started in the United States in the mid-1970s. It was then that the US Air Force issued the terms of reference for the now defunct Martin Marietta company. This company was supposed to create a new high-speed air-launched missile ASALM (Advanced Strategic Air-Launched Missile) with a range of up to 500 km, which was planned to be used against Soviet A-50 early warning aircraft (analogous to American AWACS). The main innovation of ASALM was an unusual combined power plant, consisting of a liquid-propellant rocket engine (LPRE) and a ramjet engine (ramjet). The first accelerated the rocket to a speed slightly exceeding the sound speed, after which the ramjet engine was turned on - it had already brought the speed to Mach 4-5. From October 1979 to May 1980, Martin Marietta conducted seven tests of scaled-down rocket models. Moreover, during one of such flights at an altitude of over 12 km, the rocket speed exceeded Mach 5.5. But in the summer of the same year, due to budgetary constraints, the project was closed. And after a while, Martin Marietta itself disappeared: in 1995 it was absorbed by the Lockheed Corporation, which continued its hypersonic experiments on its own initiative.
But at the turn of the century, the state was actively involved in this activity. At the initiative of DARPA, Lockheed Martin and Boeing began work on technology demonstrators, which were to culminate in the creation of a full-fledged strategic hypersonic cruise missile. It is believed that Boeing came closest to this goal, having developed the X-51 WaveRider, equipped with a Pratt & Whitney ramjet. The first tests of the X-51 took place in 2009 from the B-52 strategic bomber. At an altitude of 15 km, this plane unhooked the X-51, after which he turned on the engine and began an independent flight. It lasted about four minutes, with the X-51 reaching a speed of more than Mach 5 during the first 30 seconds of the flight. True, a year later, during the second test, the X-51 engine ran only four minutes instead of five. Due to the revealed instability of the rocket and interruptions in communication, a command was given to self-destruct. Nevertheless, the US Air Force was pleased with the result, saying that the program was completed by 95%. But the most successful and long-lasting was the last of all the known launches of the Kh-51 - in May 2013. This flight lasted six minutes, during which the rocket flew 426 km, having managed to develop a speed of Mach 5.1. After that, all information about further work on the X-51 disappeared from the open press. And the chief scientist of the US Air Force, Mick Endsley, who then oversaw this project, said only that American scientists are already working on a new generation of hypersonic vehicles, the production of which should begin in 2023. “The purpose of the X-51 WaveRider was to test whether such an aircraft could function. After successful tests, this issue was removed from the agenda, so now scientists are setting themselves the task of creating an apparatus that will be able to maneuver at such high speeds. At the same time, a guidance system will be developed that will be able to operate without errors at hypersonic speed,”Endsley said four years ago.
However, in addition to the X-51 WaveRider, DARPA has at least two major hypersonic programs. The first of them, called the High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), is short-term - it is calculated until 2020. This program includes two projects for creating hypersonic weapons at once - this is the atmospheric missile Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) and the so-called glider, Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG). It is known that the TBG project is exclusively engaged in Lockheed Martin, and this corporation is working on HAWC in partnership with Raytheon.
The Pentagon signed R&D contracts with these companies last September, giving them a total of $ 321 million. In accordance with the terms of reference, by 2020 they must submit fully functional prototypes of air and sea-based hypersonic missiles. Finally, the long-term DARPA program envisages the development of the XS-1 hypersonic guided aircraft by 2030. In fact, we are talking about a space unmanned aircraft that will independently take off from a conventional airfield, enter low-earth orbit and also land on its own.
Thus, it can be expected that in three years the Americans will be able to release a limited batch of experimental hypersonic cruise missiles, primarily air-launched, which at first will be placed on strategic bombers of the B-1 or B-52 type. This is indirectly confirmed by the report of the US Air Force, published several years ago, "On a promising vision of the development of hypersonic systems." This document directly states that the appearance of hypersonic strike weapons is planned for the period until 2020, and a promising hypersonic bomber will be created by 2030.
Note that now the United States already has an orbiting space drone X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, developed by the Boeing Corporation. True, it is launched on an Atlas-5 rocket. X-37B can be located at altitudes from 200 to 750 km for several years. Moreover, it is able to quickly change orbit, perform reconnaissance missions and deliver payloads. But it is still obvious that in the future this device will become a platform for placing on it hypersonic weapons, including those that Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are supposed to create. So far, the United States has only three such orbiters, and in recent years one of them is constantly in space. But it is likely that in the end the Americans will create a full-fledged group of orbital aircraft that will constantly carry out combat duty in space. In any case, until the XS-1 project is implemented and they have a hypersonic orbital aircraft capable of taking off without the aid of a rocket. And what can we oppose to the Americans in this area?
Stronger of all
Military experts have long guessed that our country has made significant progress in creating a wide variety of hypersonic systems. But last December, Russian President Vladimir Putin made this clear for the first time. “Russia is developing advanced types of weapons based on new physical principles that make it possible to selectively influence the critical elements of equipment and infrastructure of a potential enemy,” the head of state said. For this, according to him, the most modern achievements of science are used - lasers, hypersound, robotics. “We can say with confidence: today we are stronger than any potential aggressor. Anyone! - stressed the president. And a month later, the veil of secrecy over this topic was finally opened by our military.
Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov publicly stated that Russia is on the brink of another scientific and technological revolution, which is associated with the introduction of new generation weapons and fundamentally different principles of command and control. “On the way is hypersonic weapons, which require fundamentally new materials and control systems capable of operating in a completely different environment - in plasma,” the deputy minister said. Such weapons will soon begin to enter our troops. This, according to Borisov, is required by the changed nature of military conflicts. “The time from making a decision to the final result is sharply shrinking: if earlier it was hours, today it is tens of minutes and even units, and soon it will be seconds,” said Yuri Borisov. According to him, "the one who quickly learns to detect the enemy, issue target designations and strike - and do all this in real time, he actually wins." So what exactly are we talking about?
Three years ago, the head of the Tactical Missile Armament Corporation (KTRV) Boris Obnosov argued that the first air-launched hypersonic missiles capable of reaching Mach 6-7 could be created in our country somewhere around 2020, and a massive transition to hypersound will occur in the 2030s and 2040s. And this despite the fact that there is a huge number of scientific and technological problems that objectively arise in the development of such systems. This is how the head of KTRV himself described them in an interview with Rosinformburo and the Stolitsa FM radio station: “The main difficulty lies in the development of new materials and engines. This is a basic task in hypersound, since the temperature during such a flight is significantly higher than when flying at Mach 3. No engine from scratch can provide this speed right away. First, it must be dispersed conventionally to Mach 0, 8, then to Mach 4, then it will switch to the so-called ramjet - an engine with subsonic combustion, which operates up to Mach 6-6, 5. Next, you need to ensure supersonic combustion in the combustion chamber. Then the permissible speeds are Mach 10. But this is already translating into a large propulsion system, which can sometimes exceed the length of today's rocket. And that's a problem in itself. The second problem is that at such speeds aerodynamic heating of the surface occurs. The temperatures are very high and this requires new materials accordingly. The third problem is that at such high temperatures, the correct operation of on-board radio-electronic equipment, which is very sensitive to heating, must be ensured. In addition, at speeds exceeding Mach 6, plasma appears on sharp edges, which complicates signal transmission."
Nevertheless, there are very good reasons to believe that our scientists and designers were able to solve all these problems.
First and foremost, they managed to develop new heat-resistant materials that protect the rocket body and ensure the operation of its engine in plasma. This achievement can be safely recorded in the assets of VIAM and the Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology. It was their employees who received state awards six years ago for the creation of high-temperature ceramic composites for advanced power plants and hypersonic aircraft. The official statement says that "this team has developed an alternative - unparalleled in the world - technological method for obtaining a fiber-free structural high-temperature composite of the SiC-SiC system for operating temperatures up to 1500 ° C". Obviously, this development will make it possible to improve the characteristics of aircraft and hypersonic air-jet engines, to ensure the operability of elements of heat-loaded structures, including hypersonic aircraft, at operating temperatures by 300–400 ° C higher than in materials currently used, and by several times weight of products.
Secondly, the project itself has been implemented to create capacities that provide R&D for the development and manufacture of high-pressure jet engines for in accordance with the requirements of the State Armaments Program. This directly follows from the 2014 annual report of the Turaevsky MKB "Soyuz", which is part of the KTRV. "A new technology is being introduced for the production of parts for high-pressure jet engines of hypersonic aircraft from high-heat-resistant alloys and promising composite compounds of the" carbon-carbon "type," the document says. Moreover, it is also said there that the reconstruction of production will allow, in the period until 2020, to ensure the production of up to 50 engines per year for a promising high-speed aircraft. This means that three years ago, we were practically all ready for the release of an initial batch of engines for a new hypersonic cruise missile. Now the whole question is whether the domestic designers managed to create the rocket itself.
All nomenclature
Considering that all work on this topic is carried out in secret, it is now impossible to reliably answer it. Nevertheless, everything suggests that this has either already happened, or will happen in the coming years, if not months. And that's why. The head of KTRV Boris Obnosov in an interview with Kommersant confirmed that his corporation is using Soviet developments in this area, in particular on the projects "Kholod" and "Kholod-2". One more enterprise of KTRV - MKB "Raduga" was engaged in these projects. Two decades ago, its engineers created an experimental X-90 hypersonic missile capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 3000 km at a speed of more than Mach 6. In total, at least seven successful test launches of the X-90 were carried out, but due to the collapse of the USSR, this project was frozen. Nevertheless, subsequently, on its basis, a hypersonic aircraft demonstrator "Kholod" was created, which was even exhibited at the Moscow Air Show. There is no doubt that it was the developments obtained during the creation of the X-90 that formed the basis of our new hypersonic cruise missile. And since the tests of this weapon were successful in the Soviet years, they will almost certainly be so now. By the way, preparations for full-scale tests of the new weapon are already in full swing. So, in January of this year, the Gromov Flight Research Institute signed a contract with the Ilyushin Aviation Complex to re-equip the Il-76MD aircraft into a flying laboratory equipped with a special suspension for a hypersonic aircraft. This work should be completed as soon as possible.
The new missile, which is being created by "Raduga", at first, most likely, will be installed on the modernized strategic bombers Tu-160M2. The first such aircraft should take off next year, and from 2020 it is planned to launch serial production at the Kazan Aviation Plant. In the future, this rocket may well become the main weapon and a new hypersonic bomber capable of delivering strikes from near space. According to Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Solodovnikov, a teacher at the Strategic Missile Forces Military Academy, Russia is already working on a project for such an aircraft. “The idea is this: it will take off from conventional airfields, patrol the airspace, go into space on command, carry out strikes and return back to its airfield,” Solodovnikov told RIA Novosti. According to the lieutenant colonel, the engine for the aircraft will begin in 2018, and a working prototype should appear by 2020. TsAGI has already joined this project - the institute will take over the work on the airframe. “Now we will determine the characteristics of the aircraft. I think that the launch weight of the aircraft will be 20-25 tons, - says Aleksey Solodovnikov. - The engine turns out to be double-circuit, it will be able to both work in the atmosphere and switch to space flight mode without air, and all this on one installation. That is, it will combine two engines at once - an aircraft and a rocket. " And here I must say that the development of power plants of this kind is in full swing here. “Significant work is underway to create a hypersonic ramjet engine, an experimental prototype of which has passed flight tests,” said Igor Arbuzov, director general of NPO Energomash, at the Airshow China air show.
Finally, our Navy will soon receive new hypersonic anti-ship missiles. These are the same "Zirkons-S", the tests of which were successfully passed the other day. Their exact characteristics have not yet been disclosed, but with a high degree of probability it can be assumed that the missiles of this complex will be able to hit targets at a distance of more than 1000 kilometers at a speed of over Mach 8.
It is already known that the first complexes "Zircon-S" will be installed on the only heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Peter the Great" in our Navy. This will happen during the modernization of the ship, scheduled for 2019-2022. In total, the cruiser will be equipped with ten 3C-14 launchers, each of which can hold three Zircon missiles. Thus, "Peter the Great" will carry on board up to 30 "Zircons". This will give our cruiser qualitatively new combat capabilities, increase its survivability, and also significantly expand the range of missions performed in various theaters of military operations. For example, in the event of real hostilities, "Peter the Great" alone will be able to destroy large formations of ground forces on the ground, in fact replacing an entire squadron of bombers. And at sea - to effectively resist a large strike aircraft carrier formation. There is no doubt that following the flagship of the Northern Fleet, our other surface ships will be equipped with Zircon missiles, in particular the Leader-class destroyers, and later on the new fifth-generation Husky nuclear submarines, which are being developed by the Malakhit Design Bureau.
Thus, our country possesses all the key technologies in the field of hypersound and has already created at least two new hypersonic weapons - maneuvering warheads for ICBMs and cruise anti-ship missiles. In the very near future, we will have strategic air-launched hypersonic missiles, and a little later, orbital platforms for them, including space aircraft. This means that thanks to the gigantic Soviet backlog, we have already pulled ahead in the hypersonic race that has begun, and not only have every chance of becoming a leader for a long time, but also adequately respond to any threats.
