The U.S. Department of defense announced the conclusion with the American company Lockheed Martin contract to conduct research within the framework of a prototype of a hypersonic vehicle.
According to the Agency, the project Mach 5 Tactical Boost Glide valued at $147,3 million Research oversees the Agency for defense advanced research projects USA (DARPA).
The timing and specification of work not specified, but the experts “Reedus” I think that the US is seriously lagging behind Russia in this field.
Do Americans now have to catch a similar Russian design, and it is for US a severe blow to the ego, because initially, Russia was far behind in this area, the expert says “Independent military review, Oleg Vladykin.
“While the American developers only managed to reach the stage of computer simulations of a hypersonic vehicle, while their Russian competitors have already developed know-how, which is the main stumbling block in this technology,” he said, “Reedus”.
The stumbling block in the development of hypersonic vehicles is not only the linguistic difference between the prefixes “Hyper” from the prefix “over”, but in the physical nature of the phenomenon.
Ultrasonic devices reach speeds up to 4 M Excess of this barrier causes fouling of the apparatus by a plasma membrane — what happens to return to the Earth, spacecraft.
Plasma cocoon is impervious to radio communications, this means that hypersonic missile, first, loses control, and secondly, the “blind” itself. It does not see the operator, she sees no purpose.
“A technological breakthrough Russian engineers lies precisely in the fact that they thought that this very plasma sheath can be used for radar. Americans are so rashly ran after him, trying to repeat a Russian invention,” says Vladykin.
The critical importance of this invention lies in the fact that “blind” the missile when approaching the target is forced to reduce speed to produce a thin tip. But at subsonic speed it becomes vulnerable to missile defense systems. “What’s the point in hypersonic, if it only means that the rocket will deliver to the point of its destruction?” — says the expert.
The Pentagon and its contractors now have to break head over how to build your own hyperacute invisible to defense systems (“sword”), and how to protect yourself from Russian hypermaket (“shield”).
The Americans in missile and space technology in the last decade, everything goes wrong. Die shuttles explode “Falcon”, on the ISS, they are present only by the grace of Roscosmos, where he carries on “Unions”.
Not only Russia, but also North Korea, not to mention China, where some are catching up and even overtaking USA in the space race. With this trend, the Americans will be satisfied only by the stars on its flag: the real stars, they will not admit the new-old leaders of “star wars”.
This is the sphere of the arms race between Russia and the United States, where rivals are catching up with each other at hypersonic speeds — in the most literal sense of the word.
