US, UK & Australia to develop hypersonic weapons under AUKUS defense pact

As a part of the trilateral defence deal - AUKUS, the United States, the UK, and Australia are planning to announce the cooperation to develop hypersonic weapons to counter China’s increasing military might, and its expansion in the Pacific and South China sea. The US Navy might unveil its first installation of a hypersonic weapon similar to ballistic missiles on a warship as soon as next year, 2023. This comes as Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles, which are difficult to be shot down due to their manoeuvrability, during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

While Pentagon did not publicly make comments regarding the ongoing developments, American broadcaster PBS reported that General Dynamics' subsidiary Bath Iron Works in Maine kickstarted the engineering and design work. It intends to install the weapon system on three Zumwalt-class destroyers in a shipyard that is yet to be named in the fiscal year that begins in October 2023. 

The hypersonic weapons are launched at speeds of Mach 5 and demonstrate exceptionally high manoeuvrability. They travel 5 times faster than the speed of sound and are capable of switching paths during flight. These missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds and onset trajectories. The three allies - US, UK, and Australia plan to unveil the further expansion of AUKUS that was intended to help Canberra obtain nuclear-powered submarines. 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley arrives for a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the fiscal year 2023 defence budget in Washington. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci

China tested a hypersonic weapon system last year, Russia used it in Ukraine 

In October last year, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had informed during a briefing that China tested a hypersonic weapon system, adding that the PLA had far advanced in its military technology by conducting several hundred tests of hypersonic missiles in the contentious South China Sea. Milley had labelled the hypersonic missile test as a “very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system, and it is very concerning” in an interview with Bloomberg later. 

As Russia amassed its military troops on the volatile frontier with Ukraine early last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his military to develop advanced hypersonic missiles like Russia’s Avangard system which is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and make critical manoeuvres. In Mid-March, the United States tested the Lockheed Martin version of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) that was launched from a B-52 bomber off the west coast. The missile reportedly flew above 65,000 feet and as far as 300 miles in less than 5 minutes.

MiG-31 fighter jet of the Russian air force carrying a Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missile is parked at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. Credit: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

Meanwhile, Washington has expressed concerns about Russia’s Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (Х-47М2 "dagger") nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that targeted an underground arms depot in western Ukraine. "That's a pretty significant sledgehammer to take out a target like that,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby had told reporters at the White House, adding that it "hard to know what exactly the justification" of the launch was.