The Washington Post:
After repeated warnings that Russia and China have each developed a hypersonic missile that could punch through U.S. missile defenses, the U.S. Air Force says it will spend an estimated $1 billion to develop one of its own.
The service announced Wednesday that it has awarded Bethesda, Md.-based defense giant Lockheed Martin a $928 million contract to design, develop and test an air-launched hypersonic strike weapon, which would travel far faster than the speed of sound.
The contract is a major step forward for the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon program, an Air Force-led effort that is the second of two U.S. efforts to develop a hyper-sonic weapon. The other is a project jointly managed by the Air Force and DARPA, the Defense Department’s weapons development agency, called the Tactical Boost Glide program.
