US Looking To Develop Capabilities To Counter Hypersonic Attacks
Washington, Feb 7: The United States can defend against and defeat the threat of hypersonic weapons attacks against key installations and targets but it will be neither cheap nor easy to do so, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Chief Architect Stan Stafira said on Monday. “We believe countering hypersonic threats is feasible,” Stafira told a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“We want to challenge threats in the glide phase of flight. We believe using kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities we can affect the hypersonic threat.” MDA officials were planning to launch new infrared sensors to focus on tracking and targeting hypersonic weapons into orbit by as soon as next year, Stafira said. The MDA was also looking at defense systems to engage and destroy hypersonic weapons in their terminal, or late guide phase of flight to their targets, he added.
“We are looking at elevated infrared sensors [with] a system to be launched in 2023, a hypersonic space tracking sensor. We can get the effector up so it can engage those threats,” he said. In October 2021, a US hypersonic glide body test failed due to a rocket engine failure and in April 2021, a hypersonic missile failed to separate from a B-52H bomber in a test at Edwards Air Force Base in California, media reports have said.
