The US Army is going to carry out two tests of new hypersonic weapons delivery systems at White Sands Testing Grounds in New Mexico over the summer, said Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Douglas Bush.
The upcoming weapons test are expected to take place almost concurrently with the deployment of the first rounds of the systems.
“We have got two big hypersonic tests coming at White Sands over the summer,” Bush said at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) on Friday. “They will be [almost] concurrent with getting the first hypersonic rounds deployed to Army units.
The tests will be carried out in conjunction with the US Navy, which is cooperating in the program to develop hypersonic weapons delivery systems to catch up with advances already achieved by Russia and China, Bush said.
“We are doing the program with the Navy. It is a new technology. We are going to learn from the testing,” he said.
On February 27, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said the Army would deploy its first Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) battery this fall. Training of that unit is continuing at Joint Base Lewis-McCloud (JBLM) in Washington State, she said.
The US previously conducted its final test of a Lockheed Martin hypersonic missile in January, with the Hypersonic Airbreathing Weapon Concept missile having reached speeds greater than Mach 5.
