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China leads research into hypersonic technology: report
Weapons that travel five times the speed of sound could soon outmaneuver air defense systems.
By JANOSCH DELCKER
2/8/19, 6:00 AM CET
Updated 2/8/19, 9:48 AM CET
BERLIN — China is dominating research into technology that could allow missiles to travel five times the speed of sound and outmaneuver air defense systems, new data by the Munich Security Conference suggests.
In 2017, the vast majority of scientific publications into such “hypersonic” technology were published by Chinese researchers, according to the report, which POLITICO saw before its official release, set for Monday ahead of the conference. The figures show 716 publications from China, compared to 207 from the United States, 76 from Russia and 57 publications from India.
At the same time, the annual number of Chinese articles in the field increased more than fivefold from 2007 to 2017, according to the report.
“This shows that China must have invested an enormous amount of resources to generate this enormous rise in research output,” said Randolf Carr, one of the co-authors.
The introduction of hypersonic technology to warfare could revolutionize it in the same way stealth did a generation ago, and some experts have said China is about to surpass the U.S. in the field.
The numbers quoted by the report say nothing about the quality of research in the respective countries, and they do not include military research efforts that are kept behind closed doors, Carr acknowledged.
But “considering that in countries like Russia, such weapons systems are close to being deployed, the numbers show how eager China is to catch up,” he said.
In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow successfully tested a new hypersonic glide vehicle, which was dismissed by some experts as a bluff.
The U.S. and China are also working on such weapons.
Carr said hypersonic vehicles have two great advantages to old-fashioned ballistic missiles: On the one hand, they can fly lower and be steered more flexibly than old-school missiles, which move in a fixed trajectory toward their impact point. At the same time, they are simply too fast to be caught by existing air defense systems, he added.
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-leads-research-into-hypersonic-technology-report/
Weapons that travel five times the speed of sound could soon outmaneuver air defense systems.
By JANOSCH DELCKER
2/8/19, 6:00 AM CET
Updated 2/8/19, 9:48 AM CET
BERLIN — China is dominating research into technology that could allow missiles to travel five times the speed of sound and outmaneuver air defense systems, new data by the Munich Security Conference suggests.
In 2017, the vast majority of scientific publications into such “hypersonic” technology were published by Chinese researchers, according to the report, which POLITICO saw before its official release, set for Monday ahead of the conference. The figures show 716 publications from China, compared to 207 from the United States, 76 from Russia and 57 publications from India.
At the same time, the annual number of Chinese articles in the field increased more than fivefold from 2007 to 2017, according to the report.
“This shows that China must have invested an enormous amount of resources to generate this enormous rise in research output,” said Randolf Carr, one of the co-authors.
The introduction of hypersonic technology to warfare could revolutionize it in the same way stealth did a generation ago, and some experts have said China is about to surpass the U.S. in the field.
The numbers quoted by the report say nothing about the quality of research in the respective countries, and they do not include military research efforts that are kept behind closed doors, Carr acknowledged.
But “considering that in countries like Russia, such weapons systems are close to being deployed, the numbers show how eager China is to catch up,” he said.
In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow successfully tested a new hypersonic glide vehicle, which was dismissed by some experts as a bluff.
The U.S. and China are also working on such weapons.
Carr said hypersonic vehicles have two great advantages to old-fashioned ballistic missiles: On the one hand, they can fly lower and be steered more flexibly than old-school missiles, which move in a fixed trajectory toward their impact point. At the same time, they are simply too fast to be caught by existing air defense systems, he added.
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-leads-research-into-hypersonic-technology-report/
