DARPA's Glide Breaker Project Resumes to Phase 2; Improves Counter Hypersonic Missile Function to Mach 5

The US military is planning to push through the next phase of their hypersonic weapons to the skies this year. The program, also known as the Glide Breaker, consists of a hypersonic defense interceptor system that was built to counteract vehicles with fast flight and are able to fly at the atmospheric region's highest altitudes.

The Glide Breaker project could intercept any vessel that moves with a maximum speed of Mach 5, or about five times the speed of sound. The system uses a 'hypersonic' speed that could be compared to about five times the Mach 1.

Glide Breaker Enters Phase 2

(Photo : RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - A streak of light trails off into the night sky as the US military test fires an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, some 130 miles (209 kms) northwest of Los Angeles, California early on May 3, 2017.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA recently announced that their tests with the Glide Breaker would be entering phase two of the program.

According to a press release last April 15, DARPA officials said that they are currently finding proposals that could work with the current goals of the program regarding the flight and wind tunnel testing.

DARPA's Glide Breaker Phase 2 paper explained that the main objective of the tests would be collecting data sets from the flight analysis and carrying out improvements for future development of models and design activities. This paper also serves as a basic guideline to firms that are interested in supplying materials and providing other support for the program.

Among the interests of the Glide Breaker Phase 2 tests are to achieve better performance on the technology's divert and attitude control system or DACS. By improving this specialty, the system would be able to manage its feature called 'interceptor kill vehicle' to target fast objects on sight, including vessels that fly at hypersonic speed.

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DARPA's Hypersonic Missiles and Countermissile Programs

Phase 1 of the program was not able to consider the possibility of hypersonic targets and the plumes from the control system. This phase was made possible through the collaboration of Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne, each receiving contracts valued at $13 million and $12 million, respectively.

DARPA said that the forest phase was able to run two DACS prototypes that are successful at obtaining the expected design and reaching performance during the demonstration.

The Phase 1 testing involved screening of components and static hot-fire exhibitions of the improved version of the DACS prototype. The agency emphasized that the milestones from the first phase do not serve as prerequisites for the plans for Phase 2.

The Glide Breaker program is one of the new hypersonic-related technologies that DARPA is currently working on. In a previous update, the agency announced a separate hypersonic missile prototype project in partnership with Lockheed Martin. This innovation was also able to reach the hypersonic level for an extended period of time, Space reports.

Alongside the US government, other superpowers such as China and Russia are also constructing similar hypersonic weaponries on their own. DARPA's newest collections will not just perform their functions very well but would also be able to counter flight-based threats that have absurd speed.