A few days after the announced hypersonic tests by the US Army and Navy (Militär Aktuell reported), the US Air Force has now also played its part in the arms race for operational hypersonic missiles and shot down a Lockheed Martin AGM-183A from a Boeing B-52.
On August 8, under an inner wing station of a Boeing B-52H Stratofortress, the final stretcher/flight test of the AGM-183A air-launched hypersonic weapon or “Air-Rapid Response Weapon” (ARRW, also pronounced “Arrow”) was completed. During the flight from Edwards Airbase in Southern California, the missile successfully transmitted telemetry and GPS data to a ground station at NAS Point Mugu. Two such “captive carry tests” had already been carried out previously. The test verified system integration with the B-52 launch platform and telemetry while practicing operational concepts to be used later this year during the first powered booster test flight. According to the US Air Force (USAF), ARRW is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability by fiscal and financial year 2022, with Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor.
AGM-183A is based on the Tactical Boost Glider weapon, a joint effort between the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the USAF. It is designed to be released from an aircraft, either a B-52 or one of the new Boeing F-15E(X) Strikers. The missile uses a booster rocket to climb to a peak altitude from where the wedge-shaped weapon would detach and glide to earth at +/- Mach 5. It is intended to give battle-region (“theater”) commanders the ability to destroy high-value and time-sensitive targets and to extend the overall capabilities of U.S. precision strike weapon systems by enabling very short reaction strikes against heavily defended land targets. In contrast to Moscow and Beijing’s efforts to develop hypersonic weapons (including) nuclear warheads, Washington apparently and officially intends to install either conventional warheads or none at all on its delivery vehicles and instead use purely kinetic force to destroy the targets.
