The Pentagon is seeking to develop a drone in the next two decades that could strike any spot on Earth from the continental United States within two hours. The so-called Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle, which would be designed to hit targets about 9,000 miles away, should be available by about 2025. Hypersonic means traveling at more than five times the speed of sound. The goal is to demonstrate a system that could carry out prompt “global reach missions” without using overseas bases, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s cradle of new technologies, said in a notice released quietly two weeks ago. “DARPA and the Air Force share a vision of a new transformational capability that would provide a means of delivering a substantial payload from the continental United States to anywhere on Earth in less than two hours,” the notice said. “This capability would free the U.S. military from reliance on forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to destabilizing or threatening actions by hostile countries and terrorist organizations,” said DARPA, which is jointly sponsoring the project with the U.S. Air Force. Full Story
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