Hypersonic missile test by U.S. Air Force set back by loss of in

Nov 22, 2023

BLOOMERG

The second test flight of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s hypersonic missile prototype was marred by the weapon's failure to transmit in-flight performance data, two people familiar with the results have said, in a setback for U.S. efforts to catch up with China and Russia in a key weapons capability.

The transmission failure and loss of data in the March 13 exercise wasn't reported in a statement issued by the U.S. Air Force on March 24, which said the test "met several of the objectives and team engineers and testers are collecting data for further analysis."

After being released from a B-52H bomber off the southern coast of California, the warhead successfully separated from its rocket booster and proceeded into flight. After that, however, the data link transmitting in-flight performance information failed, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information.

This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software.

Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this FAQ.

We humbly apologize for the inconvenience.

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.

Your subscription plan doesn't allow commenting. To learn more see our FAQ