yasin_khan
New Member
The Pentagon's project to build a hypersonic missile that can hit targets a continent away has just shifted into a higher gear. The initial, design phase of the Falcon (short for "Force Application and Launch from the Continental United States") project is now done. And Lockheed Martin has been given the beginnings of a $105 million contract to develop systems that will form the building blocks of the faster-than-sound weapons.
By 2010, the Defense Department wants a bunker-busting missile that can fly into near-space, and then come crashing down on a target 3,000 miles away, at four times the speed of sound. (Currently, the military's Tomahawk cruise missiles lollygag around at measly 550 miles per hour, about three-quarters of sound's speed.) The idea is to be able to wipe out a bad guy as soon as he's detected. But there's an added bonus to having long-range, super-fast missiles: it could make the U.S. military less dependent on bases overseas. That means fewer unstable allies to piss off.
To bring Falcon along, Lockheed is leading a team that's developing "durable, high temperature materials, thermal protection systems, advanced guidance, navigation and control, efficient aerodynamic configurations, and innovative propulsion concepts," according to a press release from Darpa, the Pentagon's mad science division. It'll take about three years to put these systems together, Darpa figures. And then, it's on to Phase III of the Falcon project: flight testing the new, hypersonic killers.
http://64.207.156.228/
By 2010, the Defense Department wants a bunker-busting missile that can fly into near-space, and then come crashing down on a target 3,000 miles away, at four times the speed of sound. (Currently, the military's Tomahawk cruise missiles lollygag around at measly 550 miles per hour, about three-quarters of sound's speed.) The idea is to be able to wipe out a bad guy as soon as he's detected. But there's an added bonus to having long-range, super-fast missiles: it could make the U.S. military less dependent on bases overseas. That means fewer unstable allies to piss off.
To bring Falcon along, Lockheed is leading a team that's developing "durable, high temperature materials, thermal protection systems, advanced guidance, navigation and control, efficient aerodynamic configurations, and innovative propulsion concepts," according to a press release from Darpa, the Pentagon's mad science division. It'll take about three years to put these systems together, Darpa figures. And then, it's on to Phase III of the Falcon project: flight testing the new, hypersonic killers.
http://64.207.156.228/
