From US' HACM to India's BrahMos-II: The world's hypersonic arms race heats up
The US Air Force is advancing its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) program, reaching the flight-test phase despite previous delays. Meanwhile, India has successfully tested its own Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle, signaling a global escalation in hypersonic weapons development.
Why it matters
Hypersonic weapons significantly reduce reaction times for air defenses, fundamentally altering the landscape of modern military deterrence and global security.
The US Air Force's scramjet-powered Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) has finally reached the flight-test phase, with at least one release carried out over a test range in Australia. The programme has suffered significant delays, prompting the Air Force to scale back its overall testing plans in an attempt to keep it on schedule. Its stated goal is to decide whether to begin rapid acquisition of the missile by 2027.HACM has been developed jointly with the Royal Australian Air Force, partly under the broader US-Australian Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE), while also drawing on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) earlier Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) project. Raytheon, now RTX, working alongside Northrop Grumman, was selected to develop the missile in 2022.
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