It is too early to talk about an arms race in this area - today it is a technology race. Hypersonic projects have not yet gone beyond the ROC: so far, mostly demonstrators are sent on flight. Their levels of technological readiness on the DARPA scale are mainly in the fourth to sixth position (on a ten-point scale).
However, there is no need to talk about hypersound as a kind of technical novelty. Warheads of ICBMs enter the atmosphere at hypersound, descent vehicles with astronauts, space shuttles - this is also hypersonic. But flying at hypersonic speeds during descent from orbit is a necessary necessity, and it does not last long. We will talk about aircraft for which hypersound is a standard mode of use, and without it they will not be able to show their superiority and show their capabilities and power.
Swift Scout
The SR-72 is a promising American aircraft that can become a functional analogue of the legendary SR-71 - a supersonic and super-maneuverable reconnaissance aircraft. The main difference from its predecessor is the lack of a pilot in the cockpit and hypersonic speed.
Orbital impact
It will be about hypersonic maneuvering controlled objects - maneuvering warheads of ICBMs, hypersonic cruise missiles, hypersonic UAVs. What exactly do we mean by hypersonic aircraft? First of all, the following characteristics are meant: flight speed - 5-10 M (6150-12 300 km / h) and above, covered working range of heights - 25-140 km. One of the most attractive qualities of hypersonic vehicles is the impossibility of reliable tracking by air defense systems, since the object flies in a plasma cloud that is opaque to radars. It is also worth noting the high maneuverability and the minimum reaction time to defeat. For example, a hypersonic vehicle takes only an hour after leaving the waiting orbit to hit the selected target.
Projects of hypersonic vehicles have been developed more than once and continue to be developed in our country. You can recall the Tu-130 (6 M), the Ajax aircraft (8-10 M), projects of high-speed hypersonic aircraft of the OKB im. Mikoyan on hydrocarbon fuel in various applications and a hypersonic aircraft (6 M) on two types of fuel - hydrogen for high flight speeds and kerosene for lower ones.
Boeing X-51A Waverider hypersonic missile under development
The project of the OKB im. Mikoyan "Spiral", in which the reentry hypersonic aerospace aircraft was put into orbit by a satellite by a hypersonic booster aircraft, and after completing combat missions in orbit, it returned to the atmosphere, and performed maneuvers in it also at hypersonic speeds. The developments in the Spiral project were used in the projects of the BOR and the Buran space shuttle. There is no officially confirmed information about the Aurora hypersonic aircraft created in the USA. Everyone has heard of him, but no one has ever seen him.
"Zircon" for the fleet
On March 17, 2016 it became known that Russia has officially started testing the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile (ASC). The latest projectile will be armed with fifth-generation nuclear submarines (Husky), surface ships and, of course, the flagship of the Russian fleet, Peter the Great. A speed of 5-6 M and a range of at least 400 km (the missile will cover this distance in four minutes) will significantly complicate the use of countermeasures. It is known that the rocket will use the new Decilin-M fuel, which increases the flight range by 300 km. The developer of the Zircon anti-ship missile system is NPO Mashinostroyenia, which is part of the Tactical Missile Armament Corporation. The appearance of a serial rocket can be expected by 2020. It should be borne in mind that Russia has extensive experience in the creation of high-speed anti-ship cruise missiles, such as the serial anti-ship missile P-700 "Granit" (2, 5 M), the serial anti-ship missile P-270 "Moskit" (2, 8 M), on which will be replaced by the new anti-ship missile "Zircon".
Winged strike
The unmanned hypersonic gliding aircraft, developed at the Tupolev Design Bureau in the late 1950s, was supposed to represent the last stage of the missile strike system.
Clever warhead
The first information about the launch of the U-71 product (as it is designated in the West) into the near-earth orbit by the RS-18 Stilett rocket and its return to the atmosphere appeared in February 2015. The launch was made from the positional area of the Dombrovsky compound by the 13th missile division of the Strategic Missile Forces (Orenburg region). It is also reported that by 2025 the division will receive 24 Yu-71 products to equip the new Sarmat missiles. The product Yu-71 within the framework of the 4202 project has also been created by NPO Mashinostroyenia since 2009.
The product is a super-maneuverable missile warhead that glides at a speed of 11,000 km / h. It can go into near space and hit targets from there, as well as carry a nuclear charge and be equipped with an electronic warfare system. At the moment of diving into the atmosphere, the speed can be 5000 m / s (18000 km / h) and for this reason, the Yu-71 is protected from overheating and overloads, and can easily change the direction of flight and is not destroyed.
Element of the airframe of hypersonic weapons, which remained a project
The length of the aircraft was supposed to be 8 m, the wingspan was 2, 8 m.
The product Yu-71, possessing high maneuverability at hypersonic speed in height and along the course and flying not along a ballistic trajectory, becomes unattainable for any air defense system. In addition, the warhead is controllable, due to which it has a very high accuracy of destruction: this will also make it possible to use it in a non-nuclear high-precision version. It is known that several launches were made during 2011-2015. The Yu-71 product is believed to be put into service in 2025, and it will be equipped with the Sarmat ICBM.
Climb up
Of the projects of the past, the Kh-90 missile, which was developed by the Raduga Design Bureau, can be noted. The project dates back to 1971, it was closed in 1992, which was difficult for the country, although the tests carried out showed good results. The rocket has been repeatedly demonstrated at the MAKS aerospace show. A few years later, the project was revived: the rocket received a speed of 4-5 M and a range of 3500 km when launched from a Tu-160 carrier. A demonstration flight took place in 2004. It was supposed to arm the missile with two detachable warheads placed on the sides of the fuselage, but the projectile never entered service.
The RVV-BD hypersonic missile was developed by the Vympel Design Bureau named after II. Toropov. It continues the line of K-37, K-37M missiles in service with the MiG-31 and MiG-31BM. The RVV-BD missile will also be used to arm hypersonic interceptors of the PAK DP project. According to the statement of the head of KTRV Boris Viktorovich Obnosov, made at MAKS 2015, the rocket began to be mass-produced and its first batches will roll off the assembly line in 2016. The missile weighs 510 kg, has a high-explosive fragmentation warhead and will hit targets at ranges of 200 km in a wide range of altitudes. Dual-mode solid propellant engine allows it to develop a hypersonic speed of 6 M.
SR-71
Today, this aircraft, which has long been removed from service, occupies a prominent place in the history of aviation. It is being replaced by hypersound.
Hypersound of the Celestial Empire
In the fall of 2015, the Pentagon reported, and this was confirmed by Beijing, that China successfully tested the DF-ZF Ju-14 (WU-14) hypersonic maneuvering aircraft, which was launched from the Wuzhai test site. Ju-14 separated from the carrier "at the edge of the atmosphere", and then glided to a target located several thousand kilometers in western China. The flight of the DF-ZF was monitored by the American intelligence services, and according to their data, the device maneuvered at a speed of 5 M, although its potential speed could reach 10 M. protection against kinetic heating. Representatives of the PRC also said that the Ju-14 is capable of breaking through the US air defense system and inflicting a global nuclear strike.
America Projects
Various hypersonic aircraft are currently "in service" in the United States and are being flight tested with varying degrees of success. The start of work on them was laid back in the early 2000s, and today they are at different levels of technological readiness. Recently, Boeing, the developer of the X-51A hypersonic vehicle, announced that the X-51A would be adopted as early as 2017.
Among the projects being implemented, the United States has: a project of a hypersonic maneuvering warhead AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon), a hypersonic aircraft Falcon HTV-2 (Hyper-Sonic Technology Vehicle) launched by ICBMs, a hypersonic aircraft X-43 Hyper-X, a prototype of a hypersonic cruise missile Boeing's X-51A Waverider equipped with a hypersonic ramjet engine with supersonic combustion. It is also known that work is underway in the United States on the SR-72 hypersonic UAV from Lockheed Martin, which only in March 2016 officially announced its work on this product.
Cosmic "spiral"
A hypersonic booster aircraft developed under the Spiral project. It was also assumed that the system would include a military orbital aircraft with a rocket booster.
The first mention of the SR-72 drone dates back to 2013, when Lockheed Martin announced that it would develop the SR-72 hypersonic UAV to replace the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. It will fly at a speed of 6400 km / h at operating altitudes of 50-80 km up to suborbital, will have a two-circuit propulsion system with a common air intake and a nozzle apparatus based on a turbojet engine for acceleration from a speed of 3 M and a hypersonic ramjet with supersonic combustion for flight at speeds above 3M SR-72 will carry out reconnaissance missions, as well as strike with high-precision air-to-surface weapons in the form of light rockets without an engine - they will not need it, since a good starting hypersonic speed is already available.
Experts refer to the problematic issues of SR-72 as the choice of materials and construction of the skin that can withstand high thermal loads from kinetic heating at temperatures of 2000 ° C and above. It will also be necessary to solve the problem of separating weapons from internal compartments at a hypersonic flight speed of 5-6 M and to exclude cases of loss of communication, which were repeatedly observed during the tests of the HTV-2 object. Lockheed Martin has announced that the SR-72 will be of the same size as the SR-71 - in particular, the SR-72 will be 30 meters long. The SR-72 is expected to enter service in 2030.
