The Hill:
The Pentagon’s high-tech office will more aggressively pursue so-called hypersonic missiles as Russia and China make advances in that area, the office’s director said Thursday.
“China and Russia are active in the area of hypersonics, have been developing capabilities,” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Steven Walker told the Defense Writers Group. “DARPA has been developing technology and capabilities in the hypersonics area for a while. … We do need an infusion of dollars in our infrastructure to do hypersonics.”
Hypersonics are generally defined as missiles than can fly more than five times the speed of sound. Walker’s comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier in the morning bragged about his country having hypersonic weapons. Putin claimed the missile could render U.S. defenses “useless.”
