Skip to main content

Russia says it used a hypersonic missile in Ukraine for first time: report

Russian defense ministry officials said the country used a new hypersonic missile in an attack on Ukraine on Friday, marking its first use in combat. 

The hypersonic missile, called Kinzhal ("Dagger" in Russian), was used in an attack on a large underground warehouse in southwestern Ukraine, accokrding to Bloomberg News, which cited that Russia's claim had yet to be independently verified.

Hypersonic missiles are weapons designed to fly at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5, which is about 3,800 mph (6,100 kph). Their speed and ability to maneuver themselves to a target makes them extremely difficult to track and shoot down. The United States, Russia, China and North Korea have been developing hypersonic weapons, some of which are launched into space, in pursuit of long-range flight and maneuverability.

 


Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile, is an air-to-ground weapon carried on Russian MiG-31K fighter jets and has a reported range of 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers), according to a Tass report in 2018.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the country is also developing a hypersonic incontinental ballistic missile called Avangard that will travel at Mach 20 to reach targets around the world. 

North Korea claims to have tested its hypersonic missile this year. Last August, China  reportedly launched a hypersonic missile test on a Long March rocket, with the U.S. military testing hypersonic technology in a series of small rocket launches in October.

Aerospace companies are also pursuing hypersonic technology to develop faster jets for air travel.

Stratolaunch is building a hypersonic research plane called Talon that is designed to fly up at speeds of Mach 6 and be launched from Roc, the world's largest plane that Stratolaunch built for mid-air rocket launches. Talon will serve as a testbed for to develop new hypersonic technologies for use in the government and commercial sectors.

Another company, Hermeus Corp., is developing a hypersonic plane called Quarterhorse to travel at Mach 5 or above for air travel. It unveiled its first full-scale prototype in November.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ISRO is getting ready for Gaganyaan Abort Test with Special Test Vehicle

The first abort test using the special test vehicle (TV) part of #Gaganyaan, which was earlier targeted for the last quarter of this calendar year, is now expected only in early 2023. ISRO chairman S Somanath told: “There’s been a lot of progress & at this juncture we're looking at the first test in early 2023. The test vehicle is already at SHAR (spaceport in Sriharikota) and work on the crew module (CM) and crew escape system (CES) is progressing. As reported earlier, the test — TV technology demonstrator-1 (TV-TD1) mission — will demonstrate the descent phase, parachute deployment and recovery, among other things. While there will be more than one TV-TDs, in the first one, the CM will separate from the TV at a height of around 11km (from sea level), attain an altitude of around 15km before falling back to back in the Bay of Bengal. The Sriharikota ground team will track. Once separated or ejected from TV, CM will have a free fall. Essentially, will demonstrate crew e...
Post a Comment
Read more

ISRO is silently building Reusable Launch Vehicle

The Indian space agency is literally growing new wings as it gets ready to test a scaled down version of what can easily be described as the `swadeshi Space Shuttle'. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) calls it the `Reusable Launch Vehicle' or RLV. If all goes to plan very soon it will be seen flying over the Science City in Challakere, Karnataka, where the first landing experiment is being planned. S Somanath, Chairman, ISRO says "We are working silently on reusable rocket technology, with a very low budget, low cost and low investment." In the past USA and Russia have flown full-fledged winged space vehicles. Russia/USSR flew its vehicle called `Buran' only once in 1988 and the program was then shelved. USA made 135 flights of the Space Shuttle and in 2011 it was retired. Since then in a new burst of energy, USA, China and India are the only countries having an active program of re-useable rocket development. If all goes as per plan India's full...
Post a Comment
Read more

Russia stops rocket engine sales to United States

The decades-old space partnership between Russia and the West may be going up in smoke, another victim of the invasion of Ukraine.   Early Thursday morning (March 3), London-based company OneWeb announced that it's suspending launches of its satellites from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.  The decision came after Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, announced it would not launch 36 OneWeb internet satellites as planned on Friday (March 4) unless OneWeb guaranteed that the craft would not be used for military purposes and the United Kingdom government agreed to divest itself from OneWeb, which it helped buy out of bankruptcy in 2020 Roscosmos has also halted launches of Russian-built Soyuz rockets from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. And Roscosmos chief Dimitry Rogozin announced Friday that his agency will no longer sell rocket engines to United States companies, saying, "Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks....
Post a Comment
Read more