Bloomberg: The US military is getting closer to deploying an operational hypersonic missile battery

According to him, the army is cooperating closely with the Lockheed Martin company in order to increase the pace of missile production. Lozano noted that these are “incredibly complex” systems, part of the assembly process of which is still carried out manually.

Lozano’s optimistic forecast stands in stark contrast to the latest estimates by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspections. In a report published this week, the ministry stated that the tests of the army’s hypersonic system, known as the “Dark Eagle”, have not yet provided enough data to determine its operational effectiveness.

In their estimation, the collection of the required data will take at least another year of experiments and tests. However, the US military is not necessarily bound by the testing office’s requirements, and can decide on the deployment of the system even without the complete data, as noted in the Bloomberg report.

The “Dark Eagle” system is capable of launching missiles at five times the speed of sound (Mach 5 and above), which makes them much more difficult to detect and intercept compared to conventional missiles. So far, the US has spent over $12 billion since 2018 on developing hypersonic weapons, trying to catch up with rival powers.

Russia, as you remember, has already reported the operational use of hypersonic missiles during its invasion of Ukraine, and China continues to develop and present its own advanced capabilities in this field. Now, it remains to be seen whether the “dark eagle” will indeed spread its wings in the coming weeks and help the Americans regain the lost balance of deterrence.