(by Andrea Pinto) Hypersonic technology, missiles and aircraft that can travel at a speed between 5.000 and 25.000 km per hour (between 5 and 25 Mach). The thermal effects, typical of hypersonic speeds, impose on these vectors aerodynamic arrangements such as to create strong shock waves in the atmosphere on which, thanks to the upward thrust, they glide for enormous distances. Today's studies focus on Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and Hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs).
HGV technology for ballistic missile reentry vehicles provides that the warhead does not re-enter the atmosphere following a normal ballistic trajectory, but glides as if it were a glider. A glider that is capable of flying a Mach 20 at a lower altitude than that of a normal ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and above all with a maneuverability such as to be able to make sudden changes of course and altitude.
The novelty of hypersonic missiles, compared to ICBMs, whose constant trajectory is easily detectable, is, therefore, the remote maneuverability that allows them to trace irregular trajectories, difficult to be intercepted even by the most modern anti-missile defense systems.
The countries that have invested and already test systems of this technology will have, in the coming years, a strategic lever dominating the rest of the world.
It is not a case that Use, Russia e China they have moved forward in the development of hypersonic and for months they have intensified the testing tests, airing their respective successes to half the world to assert their supremacy in this new geostrategic sector.
Russia
President Putin has long claimed that Russia holds leadership in the hypersonic field by letting the world know about the successes of the hypersonic missile Zircon and the strategic system Avangard. Moscow has also invested in a top secret aircraft Yu-71, from the little information found on the web, the plane can develop speeds of up to 11.000 kilometers per hour, and it seems that this aircraft is also super-handy and able to enter orbital space.
Zircon is the first hypersonic cruise missile in the world capable of long aerodynamic flights by maneuvering in dense layers of the atmosphere using only its own propulsion power. The maximum speed of the missile reaches about nine times the speed of sound. Its maximum range is 1.000 kilometers. The Zircon would have hit a ground target on the shores of the Barents Sea located 350 kilometers away, flying at a speed of Mach 7.
The first missile unit equipped with Hgv (Hypersonic Glide Vehicle) warheads Avangard was located in the Orenburg oblast, a Dombarovsky. Some features of Avangard are still secret, it is assumed that it is built with composite materials to be able to withstand the very high temperatures of hypersonic flight at low altitude.
China
China has already done several tests on hypersonic aircraft in the Gobi desert and has long since completed the tests for the aircraft Jiageng 1, developed by Xiamen university after ten years of studies and planning. It has adopted the design "waverider”, Similar to the American Boeing X-51 project (Mach 5.1 or 5400 Km / h) and the University of Peking has already tested an“ I-Plane ”in the wind tunnel at speeds up to Mach 7.
A Chinese research team has also developed and successfully tested a prototype of a hypersonic flight engine, capable of operating at speeds from Mach 4 to Mach 8, i.e. between 4.900 and 9.800 km / h, based on an elaborate design. by NASA, but then discarded due to high costs and unresolved technical problems. According to the report, published by the South China China Morning Post, while most hypersonic aircraft have the engine mounted on the chassis, a key feature of the experimental TSV X aircraft is that it is powered by two separate, side-mounted engines.
The project was conceived by Ming Han Tang, a Chinese with an American passport who worked as chief engineer of NASA's hypersonic program in the late XNUMXs.
China also carried out the testing of a hypersonic missile from an aircraft already in flight at at least five times the speed of sound. The test would have taken place last July, but the revolutionary nature of its technological implications would have emerged only in the following months. The test first launched a hypersonic gliding reentry vehicle (HGV) aboard an ICBM. The HGV would have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere directed towards a simulated target at a speed five times the speed of sound, carrying another ballistic missile inside which it subsequently dropped in flight over the skies of the South China Sea.
Beijing to develop its own hypersonic technology built a new wind tunnel, the wind tunnel, called 'JF-22', which is capable of simulating flights at speeds of up to 10 kilometers per second, 30 times the speed of sound.
Chinese scientists, in the course of their experiments, have confirmed that the surface temperature of an airplane traveling at that speed could reach 10.000 ° C, hot enough to break air molecules into atoms, and even give some of them an electric charge.
Unlike existing installations in other countries, which use mechanical compressors to generate high-speed airflow, the JF-22 uses chemical explosions.
When the tunnel is lit, its fuel burns at speeds 100 million times faster than that of a gas stove, generating shock waves similar to those encountered by airplanes when traveling at high speed at high altitudes.
LENS II, the most advanced wind tunnel in the United States, simulated flights of up to Mach 7 (8.643,6 kilometers per hour), lasting 30 milliseconds. Instead, the JF-22's average operating time could reach 130 milliseconds, with a much higher maximum speed, the researcher concluded.
United States
In the United States, Raytheon is developing new hypersonic missiles with the "Hypersonic air-breathing weapon ", together with Air Force and DARPA.
Last September, the Pentagon successfully tested a hypersonic missile for the first time since 2013 air breathing: has a scramjet engine that uses air for fuel combustion, ensuring greater efficiency in high-speed flights. It was jointly developed by Northrop Grumman and Raytheon as part of the HAWC program.
On October 21, the United States, however, failed a test of a hypersonic weapon. It was carried out to evaluate the capabilities of a transport vehicle currently under development by the Pentagon.
In addition to the failed test, the US Navy and Army tested various prototype hypersonic weapon components. These tests (from open sources there would have been three) were successful and the two armed forces will carry out a flight test of a hypersonic missile in 2022. They involved two hypersonic offensive weapons projects: the Prompt Strike of the navy and the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon of the army.
U.S. efforts to develop a two-seat stealth fighter stalled in the 90s when a variant of the Lockheed Martin / Boeing F-22 was abandoned to save money. In the early 2010s, the Pentagon announced two next-generation programs: the NGAD for aeronautics and a long-term naval plan known as the F / A-XX for the development of next-generation naval aircraft to supplement and ultimately replace the current F / A-18E / F Super Hornet Fighter.
Europe
The European countries, wrote the general Pasquale Preziosa on formiche.net, they have not invested sufficiently in hypersonic technological research and are not present in this historical change, risking to “go out of history”.