US Air Force awards nearly $1 bn for hypersonic missile

The US Air Force is awarding almost $1 billion to Lockheed Martin to design and develop a hypersonic missile that can be launched from a warplane. The contract follows repeated warnings from senior defense officials about rapid advances by China and Russia in the field of hypersonic weaponry, where missiles can fly at many times the speed of sound and dodge missile-defense systems. On Thursday, Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's new defense undersecretary for research and engineering, said China had built "a pretty mature system" for a hypersonic missile to strike from thousands of kilometers (miles) away.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2HxP1f9