Germany spent the end of the 1930s and half the 1940s inventing and perfecting missiles. They made so many, they still had a ton of them left over after the end of World War II. So of course, the leftover weapons were confiscated by the United States. And here’s one of the things we did with them.

Anyone who knows the details about a V-2 rocket has to wonder how any nation managed to make so many of them. The V-2 ran on alcohol and liquid oxygen, only one of which was easy to get. It was a giant behemoth, standing forty-six feet high and weighing fifty-six thousand pounds. It moved through the air at 3,500 miles per hour. Production started on these models in the mid-1930s, but the first one wasn’t actually launched as a military weapon until September 1944, when the Germans bombed London with it.

Northrop Grumman was awarded a $13 million contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Glide Breaker program. The contract provides for the research, development, and demonstration of a technology that is critical for enabling an advanced interceptor capable of engaging maneuvering hypersonic threats in the upper atmosphere.

The U.S. is bolstering its investment in hypersonic weapons, and all the major services are participating in various development programs in conjunction with DARPA. The additional objective is protecting against hypersonic weapons other countries are developing.

The Glide Breaker program was launched in 2018 as part of this hypersonic missile defense effort. This particular project is intended to defend against boost glide vehicles, which are glide bodies lofted into the atmosphere on a ballistic missile. The glide body separates from the missile and glides unpowered to its target, with the ability to maneuver and follow unpredictable flight patterns. This maneuvering capability is one of the factors that makes these types of weapons harder to defend against than traditional ballistic missiles that follow predictable ballistic trajectories.

MOSCOW – Russia’s next-generation long-range radar technology has been able to detect a group of 6 fifth-generation F-35 multirole fighter jets near the Iranian border. This was achieved by a radar that has a specific mode of operation which uses the ionosphere when scanning airspace.

Missile and air defense radars control airspace around the Russian Federation over distances of up to several thousand kilometers. This was noted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said that long-range air defense radars detected 6 fifth-generation F-35 multi-purpose fighters near Iranian airspace just hours after a missile attack on US military bases in Iraq.

According to the head of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “at that moment, at least six F-35 fighters were detected near the Iranian border. This information needs further confirmation, however, it indicates the seriousness of the situation which has further increased tensions in the region,” RG, a Russian web portal, stated.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Although hypersonic weapons might seem like relative newcomers, known advantages of these weapons are both self-evident and multi-faceted as they can be fired from much greater stand-off ranges while having vastly increased ability to defeat, circumvent or simply destroy enemy air and ballistic missile defenses.

USAF Research Laboratory is working round-the-clock on hypersonic weapons designed to come in the next 10–15 years, in order to “expand USAF’s mission options” in the next decades, as an increasingly contested airspace is emerging, limiting US strike capabilities.

The Pentagon has been aggressively pushing for hypersonic weapons development, especially after Russian advances in this field have left the US trailing behind. Given the implications associated with firing weapons able to travel at over five-times the speed of sound, a number of programs have been underway (reportedly, there are up to 8 US hypersonic programs currently underway).