La Defense Advanced Research Project Agency American (DARPA) selected the Boeing to develop an interceptor under the program Glide Breaker, awarding $70,6 million over four years.
The goal of the project is to build an interceptor missile capable of shooting down hypersonic weapons.
The first phase involved the creation of a control system capable of intercepting aerial threats traveling at hypersonic speeds. The second phase of the program will focus on flight tests to evaluate the combat module.
The new missile interceptor will be used in areas where US forces are concentrated. In particular, this concerns the Indo-Pacific region.
The work will take place at Boeing factories in California, Missouri and Alabama.
An interceptor missile is a weapon designed to destroy other missiles in flight before they reach their targets. The Glide Breaker represents a huge leap forward in the field of interceptors, as it is designed to target the class of highly maneuverable weapons known as hypersonic glide vehicles, which are capable of performing sharp “zigzag” maneuvers while gliding without engine through Earth's atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and higher. (This combination of speed and maneuverability makes these weapons much more difficult to intercept and shoot down than traditional missiles.
“Hypersonic vehicles are among the most dangerous and rapidly evolving threats to national security”, declared, in a statement, Gil Griffin, executive director of Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Weapons. “We are focusing on the technological understanding necessary to further develop our Nation's anti-hypersonic capabilities and defend against future threats“added Griffin.
"The second phase of the program Glide Breaker will determine how factors such as hypersonic airflow and firing the jet thrusters to drive the vehicle affect system performance at extreme speed and altitude in a representative digital environment“, Griffin specified and then emphasized:“We're operating at the cutting edge of what's possible in terms of intercepting an extremely fast object in an incredibly dynamic environment.”
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