(Dan Tri) – Senior US military official, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, confirmed for the first time about China’s recent worrying hypersonic weapon test.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley (Photo: Reuters).
The Financial Times news agency recently reported that China conducted a hypersonic weapon test this summer.
However, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, this week made a rare confirmation of Washington’s concerns.
`What we saw was an important event of a hypersonic weapon test. It is very worrying,` General Milley interviewed Bloomberg in a broadcast on October 27.
Nuclear weapons experts say that China’s test appears to be designed to avoid the US defense system in two ways.
First, a hypersonic weapon moves at 5 times the speed of sound, about 6,200 km/h, making it more difficult to detect and intercept.
`It’s a way to avoid missile defense and warning systems,` US Air Force Commander Frank Kendall said.
Sources from the Financial Times said that during the test, China’s missile flew around the Earth in low orbit before descending to the target but still missed the target by about 32 km.
However, China has denied information about testing hypersonic missiles, asserting that it is only developing technology to reuse spacecraft.
`It’s not a rocket but a space vehicle,` Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on October 18.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials did not specify what the space vehicle was, but some experts said it could be a reusable booster similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Along with China, the US, Russia and at least 5 other countries are developing hypersonic technology.
Taylor Fravel, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons policy, commented that if China really develops hypersonic weapons equipped with nuclear warheads, they can neutralize missile defense systems.
Nick John