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The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Advanced Defense Research Projects Agency quietly conducted a successful hypersonic missile test last month.
A defense official told Defense News that the Pentagon chose not to make the HAWC weapons test public for about two weeks to avoid igniting already delicate tensions with Russia. The free flight test included the HAWC version created by Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne and launched by a B-52 Stratofortress off the west coast of the country in mid-March, the defense official said.
According to him, the test was successful: the rocket reached an altitude of 20 thousand meters and flew for more than 300 nautical miles. Details of the test and why it was not announced immediately were initially reported by CNN. The defense official said the HAWC test took place shortly after Russia said it used one of its hypersonic weapons against Ukraine.
It happened the same week that President Joe Biden traveled to Europe. In early March, the Pentagon postponed a test of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. The reason for this decision was that Russian President Vladimir Putin put his country’s nuclear forces on higher alert and the Americans sought to avoid any misunderstanding over the Minuteman test.
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