At the first space
The hypersonic race in Russia, the USA and China is entering the home straight. After a year and a half, the first serial cruise missiles will appear, capable of hitting targets at speeds above 5 Mach, and in another ten to twenty years space planes will be created that can independently take off and go into orbit
For several weeks now, a slight panic reigns in the US Department of Defense. The other day, our country conducted a successful launch of a new hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile “Zircon”, which is being developed by the NPO Mashinostroeniya. “During the tests of the missile, it was confirmed that its speed on the march reaches the 8 Makhov,” TASS reported, citing a source in the domestic military-industrial complex. This is the second message on the successful launch of Zircon. For the first time, the media tested this complex in March last year. Then a high-ranking representative of the Russian military industrial complex told RIA "News"That" Zircons "are already in the metal and their testing began with a ground launch complex. But that is not all. Five months before this launch, we experienced another new hypersonic weapon - "4202 product". The rocket equipped with it started in November last year from the position area Dombarovsky in the Orenburg region. After a few minutes of flying at an altitude of about a hundred kilometers, the apparatus separated from it, which at a speed of up to 15 Makhov hit the target at the Kamchatka Kura range. Moreover, before entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, the apparatus began to actively maneuver both in height and course, after which it performed the so-called slide and almost vertically fell to the ground. This approach trajectory, coupled with gigantic speed, is guaranteed to provide a breakthrough of all existing and developing US missile defense systems. Now this product in the media is most often called the U-71 hypersonic aircraft. But in reality, this is nothing more than a prototype of the combat unit of the new super-heavy ICBM “Sarmat”, which will replace the famous RS-20 “Voevod” (SS-18 “Satan”) missile forces. Experimental work on such devices began in our country back in the 1970. It was then that the first managed combat unit "Mayak" was developed, which our designers wanted to install on earlier versions of "Governor". This unit was relatively easy to aim at using radio maps and was equipped with a gas-balance control system. In total, our country conducted about several dozen test launches of missiles with the “Mayak”, but in the end it was decided to stop its development. Soviet designers decided that it was much easier to create a new combat unit for the rocket without engines, with an aerodynamic maneuvering system. In flight, he was guided by deflecting cones in the nose, which at hypersonic speeds provided him with all the same room for maneuver in height and course. But this development due to the collapse of the USSR was not brought to the end either, although the designers conducted at least six tests. However, the obtained technological reserve was not lost: it was used first in the creation of light ICBMs of the Yars and Rubezh types, and now it is the turn of the new heavy rocket.
During the tests, the first Russian shipborne hypersonic Zircon rocket was eight times the speed of sound.
It is known that the Sarmat ICBM itself will be able to carry up to 16 nuclear warheads up to a distance of 17 thousand kilometers. And destroy it in the middle part of the trajectory, apparently, is not possible. The fact is that this ICBM will be able to strike at the territory of a likely enemy from various directions, including the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as the North and South Poles. The multiplicity of azimuths approaching the target forces the defending side to build a circular system of radars and anti-missile missiles along the entire perimeter of the borders and along all the approaches to them.
The November launch of Yu-71 is the first successful test of this product, which has become public domain. And although before adopting the new combat unit "Sarmat", as the rocket itself, it will take at least another two years, numerous Western experts have already begun to fan the hysteria. “Putin’s worst missile”, “Last warning of the Kremlin”, “Disguised disguise” are just the most innocent definitions of Anglo-Saxon military analysts and journalists. But it is much more interesting how the new authorities in the White House and in Congress reacted to all these events. US President Donald Trump has already supported the Congress’s intention to allocate only 400 billion dollars for ten years and another several billion dollars to new developments in this area only to re-equip the nuclear forces of his country. And the head of the Pentagon, James Mattis, explicitly stated the need to speed up the creation of new offensive and defensive weapons, platforms and systems, including for work in outer space. This statement was greeted by Republican Senator John McCain, who promised to fight for additional funding to "create space systems that can protect American interests in space." Moreover, the US Missile Defense Agency has already been assigned to develop a program to combat "the growing threat from high-speed maneuvering missiles." "We need to consider the offensive capabilities of space control to ensure reliable space operations that are necessary to fulfill our combat plans," said General Mattis. All this means only one thing: the United States firmly decided not only to militarize outer space, but also, apparently, to create and then place there new hypersonic weapons of destruction. It is this weapon that plays a key role in the American concept of a “Fast Global Strike” (Prompt Global Strike, PGS), which, according to the Pentagon strategists, is designed to provide Washington with an overwhelming military superiority over any country or even a group of states. But can the Americans achieve their goal?
Back hands
The former head of the research laboratory of the US Air Force, Major-General Curtis Bedke, in an interview with the Air Force Times, said that his country had not paid much attention to all areas of hypersonic weapon development for a long time, which can not but affect the US military potential in the future. “The development of hypersonic technologies is not just an important, but an inevitable process, which must be taken seriously, otherwise one can be left far behind,” said Bedke. And indeed, the Americans could not do anything even remotely resembling our "Sarmat". Back in 2003, the United States Air Force, together with the agency DARPA, launched the FALCON program (Force Application and Launch from Continental). Its goal was to create a non-nuclear ballistic missile with a hypersonic warhead - CAV. It was assumed that this device with a mass of 900 kg will be able to independently maneuver in a wide range of heights and hit moving targets with an accuracy of up to several meters. Missiles equipped with new warheads were to be deployed on the coasts of the United States, outside the permanent bases of nuclear ICBMs. The locations of such carriers are not chosen randomly. The fact is that when launching this rocket, such states as Russia and China should have understood that it does not carry a nuclear warhead. But this project has not received significant development. Apparently, the US Department of Defense considered that it was cheaper to upgrade the Peacekeeper three-stage missiles, which had been removed from combat duty a decade ago, for the purposes set in the PGS framework. On the basis of this carrier, the Americans developed prototypes of the new Minotaur IV light missiles, which equipped an additional, fourth, stage. It is on this missile that the US is now pinning its main hope in implementing the PGS program using ICBM tools. However, the tests Minotaur IV are not at all the way I would like the US military. The first launch of such a missile with a hypersonic HTV-2 (Hypersonic Technology Vehicle) rocket took place in the 2010 year. The device started on board the Minotaur IV launch vehicle from the US Air Force Vandenberg base in California. At the same time, the launch pad was completely destroyed during the launch. According to the flight plan, the device itself had to fly a little more than seven thousand kilometers in half an hour and land near the Kwajalein Atoll. But that did not happen. It is believed that the warhead was able to develop speed up to 20 Mach in the upper atmosphere, but the connection with it was lost, because of which the testers could not receive telemetry information. The most likely cause of failure DARPA called the lack of a control system, namely, incorrectly installed center of gravity of the rocket, as well as insufficient mobility of the elevators and stabilizers. Because of this, the rocket in flight began to turn around the longitudinal axis, but the control system did not allow to compensate for the deviation and level the course. And after the rotation reached the limit value, the experimental apparatus collapsed and fell into the ocean - this happened on the ninth minute of flight. story with the destruction of the launch pad and the loss of telemetry repeated. True, this time the unit was able to hold out in flight for much longer - about twenty-five minutes. Nevertheless, the Pentagon decided to postpone the adoption of Minotaur IV into service indefinitely. According to official statements by the US military, this system is still in development, and its final appearance has not been formed.
Thus, the success of the Americans in creating hypersonic maneuvering units for ICBMs is very modest. And the level of technology they have achieved in this particular area hardly falls short of late Soviet developments. Moreover, there are very good reasons to believe that the United States is losing not only to Russia, but also to the third participant in the hypersonic race - China.
Over the past four years, China has conducted seven trials of its new WU-14 (DF-ZF) hypersonic unit. Moreover, only one of them, the second in a row, ended in an accident. All other launches were successful. The last such launch took place in April last year. Then the ICBM Dong Feng 41 (DF-41) launched from Shanxi in central China and entered the upper atmosphere, where it separated from WU-14, after which it planned down, hitting a target in western China - at a distance of several thousand kilometers from the place launch. According to US intelligence, the speed of the WU-14 in a separate section of the trajectory reached 10 Machs. The Americans themselves believe that China will equip its missiles DF-31 and DF-41 with new warheads, which will increase their range from 8-10 thousand km to 12 thousand km. After China has developed and fully mastered this technology, it will have very effective means of destruction capable of overcoming all existing missile defense systems. But one more important nuance should not be forgotten. According to American military expert Richard Fisher, the progress made by the Chinese in the field of hypersonic technologies will naturally intensify the country's research in the field of anti-ship hypersonic missiles. Already now we can talk about the imminent appearance of a new generation of Chinese anti-ship missiles - DF-21 - with a range of up to 3000 km, Fisher said. “China may well complete the development of the first version of such an apparatus in a year or two. And after a few years, take it into service, ”said the American expert. If China does create a hypersonic anti-ship missile in the coming years, this will fundamentally change the balance of forces in the South China Sea - at the theater of operations strategically important for China, where the US presence is still very large. It is no secret that China has been actively expanding its military presence in this region for several years, in particular, spreading artificial islands around the rocks of the Spratly archipelago and creating military infrastructure there - basing and refueling points for surface ships of the middle ocean zone - and even built an airfield for fighter aviation. This is done primarily in order to fully control the main sea route passing through the Strait of Malacca, through which almost half of all imported oil is supplied to the PRC and exported to a third of all Chinese goods. The Strait of Malacca is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. For several decades, pirates have been dominating here, attacking tankers and bulk carriers. And nearby, in the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern coast of the island of Sumatra, separatists are rushing to power, who also do not hesitate to attack the ships passing through the Strait of Malacca. But the most important thing is that about one thousand kilometers from this strait are the very Spratly Islands, whose affiliation with China is disputed by Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and even tiny Brunei. At least one Pacific carrier group is constantly on duty in the same area fleet USA. The Americans do not recognize Spratly’s belonging to China and consider the entire area around these islands to be a free international zone, which may include warships from different countries. “By pouring islands and creating basing points there, China is actually using a long-standing Soviet strategy for creating protected areas,” says Maxim Shepovalenko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST). - The creation of hypersonic anti-ship missiles capable of withstanding large aircraft carrier formations is also well within this strategy. It is possible that this is generally the main idea of testing hypersonic weapons that China is currently conducting. ” However, the Chinese themselves are very ornate in this regard. So, in an interview with China Daily in May last year, Professor of the NAOK Missile Forces Command College, Shao Yonglin, said that the tested hypersonic device could not initially be created to hit mobile targets, such as aircraft carriers. They say that a plasma cloud forming around it in flight interferes with the operation of the sensors for correction and guidance on moving targets. And at the moment, Chinese designers do not have options for solving this problem, Yunlin believes. However, nothing prevents them from working on this problem and finally achieving the desired result. “In any case, at the current level of technology development in China, this does not seem impossible,” says Maxim Shepovalenko. It just cannot but worry the Americans. According to Mark Lewis, head of the US Air Force research team, Russian and Chinese hypersonic means are challenging American military power. “While the Pentagon was idle, probable opponents have launched feverish activities and are already testing their missiles, which in the future will be able to deliver nuclear warheads,” he says.
According to the test results of X-51 WaveRider, the Americans decided to create two hypersonic air-based vehicles at once.
Obviously, in this situation, the United States will do its utmost to reduce the gap between Russia and China in the creation of maneuvering hypersonic units for ICBMs. It is already known that out of 400 billion dollars, which Congress intends to allocate for the rearmament of US strategic offensive forces, about 43 billion will be spent on the modernization of mine-based missiles. Americans will almost certainly try to bring to the logical end work on modernizing Minotaur IV missiles and creating new warheads for them. But Washington intends to spend much more money on the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, as well as their carriers, including space platforms. It was here that the United States achieved the most impressive successes.
Threat from orbit
The first serious experiments to create hypersonic cruise missiles launched in the US in the middle of the 1970-x. It was then that the US Air Force issued a technical task to the now defunct company Martin Marietta. This company was to create an ASALM (Advanced Strategic Air-Launched Missile) high-speed air-launched missile with a range of up to 500 km, which was planned to be used against Soviet A-50 early warning radar aircraft (similar to American AWACS). The main innovation of ASALM was an unusual combined power plant consisting of a liquid-propellant rocket engine (LRE) and a ramjet engine (ramjet). The first one accelerated the rocket to a speed slightly higher than the sound speed, after which the ramjet was activated — it had already adjusted the speed to 4 – 5 Mach. From October 1979 to May 1980, Martin Marietta conducted seven tests of reduced rocket models. And during one of these flights at an altitude of more than 12 km, the rocket speed exceeded Mach 5,5. But in the summer of the same year, the project was closed due to budget constraints. And after a while, Martin Marietta herself disappeared: in 1995, Lockheed Corporation absorbed it, which continued hypersonic experiments in a proactive manner.
Hypersonic maneuvering warheads of the Sarmat ICBM will overcome any missile defense system
But at the turn of the century, the state was actively involved in this activity. On the initiative of DARPA, Lockheed Martin and Boeing began work on technology demonstrators, which were to culminate in the creation of a full-fledged strategic hypersonic cruise missile. It is believed that Boeing came closest to this goal, developing the X-51 WaveRider, equipped with a Pratt & Whitney ramjet. The first tests of the X-51 took place in 2009 from the B-52 strategic bomber. At an altitude of 15 km, this plane unhooked the X-51, after which he turned on the engine and began an independent flight. It lasted about four minutes, with the X-51 reaching a speed of more than Mach 5 during the first 30 seconds of the flight. True, a year later, during the second test, the X-51 engine ran only four minutes instead of five. Due to the revealed instability of the rocket and interruptions in communication, a command was given to self-destruct. Nevertheless, the US Air Force was pleased with the result, stating that the program was completed by 95%. But the most successful and long-lasting was the last of all known X-51 launches - in May 2013. This flight lasted six minutes, during which the rocket flew 426 km, managing to develop a speed of Mach 5,1. After that, all information about further work on the X-51 disappeared from the open press. And the chief scientist of the US Air Force, Mick Endsley, who then oversaw this project, said only that American scientists are already working on a new generation of hypersonic vehicles, the production of which should begin in 2023. “The purpose of the X-51 WaveRider was to test whether such an aircraft could function. After successful tests, this issue was removed from the agenda, so now scientists are setting themselves the task of creating an apparatus that will be able to maneuver at such high speeds. At the same time, a guidance system will be developed that will be able to operate without errors at hypersonic speed, "Endsley said four years ago.
However, in addition to X-51 WaveRider, DARPA has at least two major programs in the field of hypersound. The first one, called High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), is short-term - it is calculated to 2020 year. This program includes two projects to create hypersonic weapons at once - this is the atmospheric rocket Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) and the so-called glider, Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG). It is known that the TBG project deals exclusively with Lockheed Martin, and this corporation is working on HAWC in partnership with Raytheon.
Last September, the Pentagon signed development contracts with these companies, giving them a total of 321 million dollars. In accordance with the terms of reference for the 2020 year, they must submit fully functional prototypes of hypersonic air and sea-based missiles. Finally, the long-term DARPA program involves the development of a hypersonic XS-2030 aircraft by 1 year. In fact, we are talking about a space unmanned aircraft, which will independently take off from a conventional aerodrome, go into near-earth orbit and also land on its own.
Thus, it can be expected that in three years the Americans will be able to launch a limited batch of experimental hypersonic cruise missiles, primarily airborne, which they will initially place on strategic bombers of the B-1 or B-52 type. This is indirectly confirmed by the report of the US Air Force "On the long-term vision of the development of hypersonic systems" published several years ago. This document explicitly states that the appearance of percussion hypersonic means is planned for the period up to 2020, and by 2030 a promising hypersonic bomber will be created.
By 2030, the US is hoping to create an XS-1 hypersonic space bomber
Note that now the United States already has an orbital space drone X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, developed by Boeing Corporation. True, it runs on an Atlas-5 rocket. X-37B may be at altitudes from 200 to 750 km for several years. Moreover, he is able to quickly change the orbit, perform reconnaissance tasks and deliver the payload. But it is still obvious that in the future this device will become a platform for placing hypersonic weapons on it, including those that should create Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. So far, the United States has only three such orbiters, and in recent years one of them is constantly in space. But it is likely that in the end the Americans will create a full-fledged grouping of orbital planes, which will constantly be on combat duty in space. In any case, until the XS-1 project is implemented and they have a hypersonic orbital plane capable of taking off without a rocket. And what can we oppose to the Americans in this area?
All stronger
The fact that our country has made significant progress in creating a variety of hypersonic systems, military experts have guessed for a long time. But in December last year, for the first time, it was made clear by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Russia is developing promising types of weapons, based on new physical principles, which enable selective influence on critical elements of equipment and infrastructure of a potential enemy," the head of state said. For this, according to him, the most modern achievements of science are used - lasers, hypersound, robotics. “We can say with confidence: today we are stronger than any potential aggressor. Anyone! ”- stressed the president. A month later, our military finally opened the veil of secrecy over this topic.
Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov has publicly stated that Russia is at the turn of the next scientific and technological revolution, which is associated with the introduction of new-generation weapons and fundamentally different principles of troop control. “On the approach there is a hypersonic weapon, which requires fundamentally new materials and control systems that can work in a completely different environment - in plasma,” the deputy minister said. Such weapons will soon begin to enter our troops. This, according to Borisov, requires the changed nature of military conflicts. “The time from the decision to the final result is sharply compressed: if it used to be hours, today it is tens of minutes and even a few, and soon it will be seconds,” said Yury Borisov. According to him, “who quickly learns how to detect an enemy, target, and hit — and do it all in real time, that one actually wins.” So what exactly is it about?
Three years ago, the head of the corporation Tactical Missile Weapons (KTRV) Boris Obnosov argued that the first hypersonic air-based missiles capable of speeding up the 6 – 7 Machs could be created in our country somewhere around 2020, and the massive transition to hypersound will occur in 2030 – 2040-x. And this is despite the fact that there are a huge number of scientific and technological problems that objectively arise in the development of such systems. Here is how the head of KTRV himself described them in an interview with Rosinformbyuro and Stolitsa FM radio station: “The main difficulty lies in the development of new materials and engines. This is a basic task in hypersound, since the temperature during such a flight is significantly higher than when flying on 3 Max. No engine from scratch can immediately provide this speed. First, it must be accelerated conditionally to 0,8 Mach, then to 4 Mach, then it will switch to the so-called Ramjet — a subsonic-burning engine that runs to 6 – 6,5 Mach. Next you need to provide supersonic combustion in the combustion chamber. Then the permissible speeds are 10 Mach. But this already results in a large propulsion system, which sometimes can be larger than the length of today's rocket. And this in itself is a problem. The second problem is that at such speeds, aerodynamic surface heating occurs. Temperatures are very high, and this requires, respectively, new materials. The third problem is that at such high temperatures the proper operation of onboard avionics equipment, which is very sensitive to heat, must be ensured. In addition, at speeds greater than 6 Mach, plasma appears on the sharp edges, which makes signal transmission more difficult. ”
Nevertheless, there are very good reasons to believe that all these problems were still solved by our scientists and designers.
First and foremost, they managed to develop new heat-resistant materials that protect the rocket body and ensure the operation of its engine in the plasma. This achievement can be safely recorded in the asset of VIAM and the Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology. It was their employees who six years ago received state awards for the creation of high-temperature ceramic composites for advanced propulsion systems and hypersonic aircraft. The official report says that "this team has developed an alternative - unparalleled in the world - technological method for producing a SiC-SiC system without a fiber-free structural high-temperature composite for operating temperatures up to 1500 ° С." Obviously, this development will improve the performance of aircraft and hypersonic jet engines, to ensure the performance of the elements of heat-loaded structures, including hypersonic aircraft, at operating temperatures of 300 – 400 ° C higher than in currently used materials, and to reduce mass of products.
The second is the implementation of the project for the creation of capacities that ensure the conduct of research and development for the design and manufacture of the HPPP in accordance with the requirements of the State Armaments Program. This directly follows from the annual report for 2014 of the Turaevsky Soyuz IBC, which is part of KTRV. “A new technology is being introduced for the production of parts for the injection pump of hypersonic aircraft made of high-heat-resistant alloys and advanced carbon-carbon composite compounds,” this document says. Moreover, it also says that the reconstruction of the production will allow to produce up to 2020 engines per year for a promising high-speed aircraft in the period up to 50. This means that three years ago we had practically everything ready for the release of an installation batch of engines for the new hypersonic cruise missile. Now the whole question is whether domestic designers have succeeded in creating the rocket itself.
Whole nomenclature
Given that all work on this subject is conducted in a secret mode, it is impossible to reliably answer it now. Nevertheless, everything suggests that this has already happened, or will occur in the coming years, if not months. And that's why. The head of KTRV, Boris Obnosov, in an interview with Kommersant confirmed that his corporation is using Soviet developments in this area, in particular on the projects Kholod and Kholod-2. Another KTRV enterprise, ICB Raduga, was involved in these projects. Two decades ago, his engineers created an experimental X-90 hypersonic rocket capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 3000 km at a speed exceeding 6 Mach. In total, at least seven successful X-90 test launches were carried out, but due to the collapse of the USSR, this project was frozen. Nevertheless, later on its base a hypersonic demonstration aircraft “Cold” was created, which was even exhibited at the Moscow Air Show. There is no doubt that the developments obtained during the creation of the X-90 formed the basis of our new hypersonic cruise missile. And since in the Soviet years, the tests of these weapons were successful, they will almost certainly prove to be so now. By the way, preparation for full-scale tests of new weapons is already underway. So, in January of this year, the LII named after M. Gromov signed a contract with the Aviation Complex named after S. Ilyushin to re-equip the IL-76MD aircraft into a flying laboratory equipped with a special suspension for a hypersonic aircraft. This work should be completed very soon.
A new missile that Raduga is creating will most likely be installed on modernized strategic bombers Tu-160М2 at first. The first such aircraft should take to the air next year, and from 2020, it is planned to launch mass production at the Kazan Aviation Plant. In the future, this rocket may well become the main weapon of the new hypersonic bomber, capable of delivering strikes from near space. According to the teacher of the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Solodovnikov, a project of such an aircraft is already being worked out in Russia. “The idea is this: it will take off from ordinary airfields, patrol airspace, go out into space, perform strikes and return to its own airfield,” Solodovnikov told RIA Novosti. According to the lieutenant colonel, the engine for the aircraft will be started from the 2018 year, and a working prototype should appear by 2020. TsAGI has already joined this project - the institute will take over the work on the glider. “Now we will be determined with the characteristics of the aircraft. I think that the starting mass of the aircraft will be 20 – 25 tons, - says Alexey Solodovnikov. - The engine turns out to be double-circuit, it can both work in the atmosphere and switch to space flight mode without air, and all this on one installation. That is, it will combine two engines at once - aircraft and rocket. ” And here it must be said that the development of power plants of this kind is in full swing. "Significant work is underway to create a hypersonic ramjet engine, the experimental model of which passed flight tests," said Igor Arbuzov, general director of the NGO Energomash, at the Airshow China air show.
Finally, our new navy will soon receive new hypersonic anti-ship missiles. These are the very "Zircons-S", which have been successfully tested recently. Their exact characteristics have not yet been disclosed, but with a high degree of probability it can be assumed that the missiles of this complex will be able to hit targets at a distance of more than 1000 kilometers at a speed exceeding 8 Mach.
It is already known that the first Zirkon-S complexes will be installed on the Peter the Great heavy nuclear-powered cruiser, the only one in our Navy. This will happen during the modernization of the ship, scheduled for 2019 – 2022 years. In total, the cruiser will be equipped with ten launchers 3С-14, each of which can accommodate three missiles "Zircon". Thus, Peter the Great will carry on its board until the Zircons 30. This will give our cruiser a qualitatively new combat capabilities, increase its survivability, and will also allow it to significantly expand the range of tasks performed at various theaters of military operations. For example, in the case of real hostilities, Peter the Great alone will be able to destroy large ground formations on the ground, in effect replacing the whole squadron of bombers. And at sea - to effectively resist a major aircraft carrier strike connection. There is no doubt that, following the flagship of the Northern Fleet, Zirkon missiles will be equipped with our other surface ships, in particular destroyers of the Leader type, and later new submarines of the fifth generation Husky, which are being developed by the Malachit design bureau.
Thus, our country owns all the key technologies in the field of hypersound and has already created at least two new hypersonic weapons of destruction — maneuvering warheads for ICBMs and cruise anti-ship missiles. In the very near future, we will have strategic hypersonic air-based missiles, and a little later, orbital platforms for them, including space planes. This means that, thanks to the gigantic Soviet backlog, we have already pulled ahead in the hypersonic race that has begun, and not only have all the chances of becoming a leader for a long time, but also adequately responding to any threats.
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