U.S. Defense Contractors See Hypersonic Ramp-up | Aviation International News

U.S. Defense Contractors See Hypersonic Ramp-up

Raytheon and Lockheed Martin share in more than $3 billion in U.S. contracts for hypersonic weapons development.

Artist rendering of Raytheon's Tactical Boost Glide flight system. (Image: Raytheon)

By Jerry Siebenmark • Senior Editor

May 24, 2019

There has been a major push in the U.S. for the past couple of years for offensive and defensive hypersonic weapons development, including the awarding of more than $3 billion in contracts to major defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. There’s good reason: undersecretary of defense for research and engineering Michael Griffin last December at a Washington lecture series warned that other countries are moving faster in that arena than the U.S. “In the last year, China has tested more hypersonic weapons than we have in a decade,” Griffin said. “We’ve got to fix that.” And a weapon that travels a mile per second poses a serious threat to the continent as well as its naval assets at sea.

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