Australia joins with USA to get hypersonic missiles
 Australia Teams Up With U.S. To Get Hypersonic Missiles For Its Super Hornets In Five Years
Plans call for the rapid prototyping of a new air-breathing long-range missile for the Royal Australian Air Force. The Drive, THOMAS NEWDICK. NOVEMBER 30, 2020 Australia is gearing up to start testing a new air-launched hypersonic missile “within months.” Details of the joint U.S.-Australian program are still emerging but point to a multi-million-dollar effort to develop an air-breathing, long-range missile that could ultimately be carried by a range of Royal Australian Air Force aircraft. The new weapon is due to be formally announced tomorrow and prototypes are being developed together with the United States under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE. Hypersonic weapons are generally understood to be capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound, giving them faster response time for striking critical targets and making them much harder to defend against than their slower counterparts
The new weapon is due to be formally announced tomorrow and prototypes are being developed together with the United States under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE. Hypersonic weapons are generally understood to be capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound, giving them faster response time for striking critical targets and making them much harder to defend against than their slower counterparts……
While Australia has apparently struck a new deal with the United States regarding SCIFiRE in the last few days, this program dates back as long as 15 years. It has included joint research on hypersonic scramjets, rocket motors, sensors, and advanced manufacturing materials.
In the past, The War Zone has examined previous U.S. and Australian hypersonic experiments, including the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HiFIRE) program, which you can read more about here. A U.S. Air Force contract announcement as long ago as 2008 indicated that one of the aims of the HiFIRE program was to gather information that could be “applicable to the design of next-generation high-speed strike weapons.”……..
While the initial focus of the SCIFiRE work seems to be firmly on an air-launched missile for the RAAF, Australia is also looking to develop hypersonic weapons for launch from the ground or from warships, and it’s possible that a family of weapons may eventually be developed for different launch platform applications. …….. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37875/australia-teams-up-with-u-s-to-get-hypersonic-missiles-for-its-super-hornets-in-five-years
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