The senior official in charge of the missile program stated that the first fully equipped battery is nearing completion, with deployment expected in the coming weeks. The official noted during an industrial conference that the military is working with Lockheed Martin to boost production of hypersonic missiles, highlighting their extreme complexity and the fact that some stages are manually assembled.
Meanwhile, a report released this week by the Pentagon’s weapons testing office indicated that insufficient data is currently available to determine the effectiveness of the “Dark Eagle” hypersonic system, with data collection expected to be completed within a year. The military is not bound by the testing office’s requirements and may decide to deploy the system even without that data.
Since 2018, the United States has invested over $12 billion in the development of hypersonic weapons, yet it remains behind China and Russia, which have already deployed such systems. These weapons are characterized by their ability to travel at speeds exceeding five times the speed of sound, which significantly reduces the likelihood of interception by air defense systems.
