The United States has “a lot of catching up to do very quickly,” US Space Force Gen David Thompson told CNN. After recent hypersonic weapons tests by China and Russia surprised US national security officials and indicated the US is falling behind their main geopolitical rivals. The purpose is to “light a fire underneath the entire hypersonic industry” and “encourage industry to pick up the pace,” according to two executives at two defense companies who’ve been invited to the meeting. The highly maneuverable weapons fly at speeds in excess of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound — posing a dangerous threat to missile defense systems.
According to the report, top executives from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Leidos, Aerojet Rocketdyne, BAE Systems, L3 Harris, and about a half dozen other defense companies have been invited to attend. China and Russia’s advances and recent failed tests have led the Pentagon to inject more urgency into the US program and increase the resources. The FY22 budget committed $3.8 billion to hypersonic research, an increase from the previous year’s $3.2 billion, reports CNN
