The Regional Glide Phase Weapon System—a concept for an interceptor against a hypersonic glide vehicle—will be initially constrained to a ship launch application with a Mk. 41 vertical launch system, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said March 4.

The U.S. Defense Department’s acquisition leadership has set up a “war room” in the Pentagon to assess the industrial base for hypersonic weapons ahead of a planned production ramp-up within a few years. 

The U.S. Army will “very soon” demonstrate a ground-launched ballistic missile with a range greater than 500 km, the previous limit set by a now-defunct arms control treaty, Gen. Mike Murray said on March 4. 

U.S. defense officials are considering a “broad set” of scramjet-powered, hypersonic cruise missiles as the U.S. Air Force focuses in the near term on preparing a follow-on program to DARPA's Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept. 

Britain is to develop a new nuclear warhead with the U.S. to arm its submarine-based deterrent.

The U.S. Air Force terminated one of two hypersonic missile prototypes a year before a planned decision point to divert funding for other priorities and preserve funding for the more advanced high-speed missile, the top acquisition official said Feb. 28.

Small Diameter Bombs and Miniature Air-Launched Decoys will demonstrate a new semi-autonomous weapon technology later this year, an Air Force Research Laboratory official says.

The AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) is the U.S. military’s most technologically ambitious hypersonic weapon.