China Tests Developmental Hypersonic Mach 10 Missile Vs US Defenses, US Urged To Keep Up - International Business Times
China Tests Developmental Hypersonic Mach 10 Missile Vs US Defenses, US Urged To Keep Up
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | December 5, 2014 4:50 PM EST
China's been busy this week conducting flight tests of a new hypersonic Mach 10 missile which, according to United States intelligence agencies, was primarily developed to evade defense systems of the U.S.
Quoting Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeff Pool, the Washington Free Beacon reported Pentagon knew of China's experimental launches of the developmental Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle. Pool said the latest flight test was actually the third that China did, the first and second being on Jan 9 and Aug 7, respectively.
From what they gathered, Pool said China is perfecting the Wu-14 hypersonic glide to travel up to eight times the speed of sound, describing such speed is a "high-priority element in China's large-scale military buildup." Pool said Pentagon "routinely monitors the foreign defense activities" of other countries.
Launched atop a Chinese ballistic missile, the Wu-14 was released along the edge of space. Previous experiments, the Pentagon said, showed the glide strike vehicle clocked an estimated speed of Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. This is roughly 7,680 miles per hour. Such speeds, according to the Beacon, "create difficult aeronautics and physics challenges for guidance systems and place extreme stress on materials used in construction of the vehicle."
But an annual report released on Nov 29 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China's Wu-14 hypersonic glide "could render existing U.S. missile defense systems less effective and potentially obsolete." Once deployed, the Wu-14 "could enable China to conduct kinetic strikes anywhere in the world within minutes to hours," the report further stressed.
It also said the high-speed glide vehicle is planned for deployment by China by 2020, along with a scramjet powered hypersonic vehicle by 2025. The weapons, according to Lee Fuell, technical director for force modernization and employment at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), is being "associated with [China's] nuclear deterrent forces."
The commission report also said China is expanding its strategic nuclear forces "significantly," with new missiles, submarines, and multiple-warhead weapons. Rick Fisher, identified by Beacon as a China military affairs analyst, said China will still need to perform more tests before the Wu-14 turns into a working weapon.
However, he urged on the U.S. that now is the time to "expand and accelerate its own hypersonic weapons program" because the country has already lagged behind others, particularly Russia and China. Russia in November announced it is already looking into fielding hypersonic missiles by 2020.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon strategic forces specialist, said the latest Chinese hypersonic vehicle test is "a serious threat" because the vehicle is nuclear and "can also be used as conventional version."
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