Overview
- The Pentagon, working with Rocket Lab, is using adapted commercial rockets as suborbital launch platforms to push experimental vehicles beyond Mach 20 inside the atmosphere.
- Each flight serves as a testbed rather than a fielded weapon, allowing quick, repeatable trials that cost less than traditional military programs.
- Engineers are studying scramjet propulsion, which compresses incoming air at extreme speed to burn fuel without moving parts, to advance sustained hypersonic flight.
- At these speeds the air ionizes into a plasma sheath that can block radio links and overwhelm sensors, so tests focus on communications, guidance and high‑temperature 3D‑printed structures.
- Officials frame the effort as dual‑use development that builds U.S. strike options and informs detection and defense against Chinese and Russian hypersonic systems, which shrink decision times in a crisis.