Chinese hypersonic weapon leaves US Pentagon ‘quaking in their boots’

The US Pentagon is calling for more funding to research hypersonic missiles, after a shock weapons test in July where China fired a rocket at five times the speed of sound.

China's hypersonic glide spacecraft terrified people around the world when it fired a missile at 21,000mph over the South China Sea.

Military bigwigs in the US still can't work out how China was able to pull off the test on the hypersonic missile, which has the capacity to carry nuclear warheads and completely avoid rapid defence measures.

The Pentagon's high-tech Darpa agency say they also don't know why China fired the missile from its 'orbital bombardment system', and warned that the US is 'not as advanced' as China and Russia in the technology.

General David Thompson, the vice-chief of operations at the US Space Force, said: "We have catching up to do very quickly. The Chinese have had an incredibly aggressive hypersonic programme for several years."

China denied it was gearing up for an arms race with the US, and claimed the US military is simply trying to sow fear in order to secure more funding.

A Chinese embassy spokesperson, Liu Pengyu, said: "We are not interested in having an arms race with other countries."

  • Jeff Bezos hits back at critics for saying there are bigger problems on Earth than space

He added: "The US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like "the China threat" to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons."

Around the time of the rocket test, China's Foreign Ministry also denied it was testing a hypersonic missile, instead claiming it was a test for the 'peaceful' space programme.

  • The Queen has secret Facebook account and 'unhackable' Samsung smartphone

Zhao Lijian said it was "a routine spacecraft test to verify reusable technology for a spacecraft. This is of great significance for reducing the cost of spacecraft. It can provide a convenient and cheap way for people to use space peacefully."

China and the US are two of eight countries currently developing hypersonic missiles, which can travel much faster than the speed of sound and overwhelm conventional early warning radars.

Source: Read Full Article