China News Service, October 22. According to foreign media reports, people who learned of the test results said that the Pentagon’s hypersonic weapon program suffered a setback on the 21st local time when the booster rocket equipped with hypersonic weapons failed the test.
Reuters quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying that the test was designed to verify the Pentagon's hypersonic gliding vehicle under development from various aspects.
The hypersonic glide vehicle is launched by a rocket in the atmosphere, and then glide to the target at a speed exceeding 5 times the speed of sound, which is about 3853 miles (6200 kilometers) per hour.
However, the Pentagon announced on the 21st that the US military conducted a test of prototype parts of a hypersonic weapon on October 20 and emphasized that all three tests were successful.
The Pentagon said in a statement that the test successfully "demonstrated advanced hypersonic technology, capabilities and prototype systems in a realistic operating environment."
It is reported that since the beginning of 2000, the United States has been actively developing hypersonic weapons as part of its "momentary global strike" program.
In December 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at a high-level military meeting that Russia had deployed hypersonic weapons for the first time in its history and was the only country in the world to deploy such advanced weapons.
He said at the time that during the Cold War, the former Soviet Union lags behind the United States in the development of atomic bombs, strategic bombers, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now Russia has surpassed the United States in the development of new weapons, saying that the United States is catching up from behind.