The AGM-183A hypersonic missile was successfully tested in the United States

The United States Air Force has successfully test-launched a prototype of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic missile.

The War Zone reports about this.

The U.S. military said the test launch was conducted last Saturday, May 14.

A B-52H Stratofortress from the 419th Flight Test Squadron launched the prototype of the AGM-183A hypersonic missile over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California.

This successful test followed three failed launch attempts last year.

The development of the AGM-183A ARRW (Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon) is one of the most important defense projects in the United States.

According to previously released information, the ARRW consists of an air-based solid-propellant missile equipped with a hypersonic unit with a Tactical Boost Glide rocket engine.

This aircraft system is created within the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) project – a universal guided maneuverable gliding hypersonic warhead designed to equip the weapons systems for three types of US forces (Army, Air Force, and Navy).

Previously, the US Air Force stated that it would take ARRW only 10 to 12 minutes to hit targets at a distance of 1,000 miles.

The C-HGB hypersonic warhead is based on the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) – an experimental hypersonic warhead developed by Sandy National Laboratories for the US Army, which was tested in two launches in 2011 and 2014 and reached a speed of 8M (“M” – Mach number).

For C-HGB, the official speed is still announced as “more than 5M”. These units are manufactured by Dynetics Technical Solutions (DTS).

The plan is to purchase at least eight full-fledged AGM-183A prototypes, some of which might be deployed with limited operational capabilities depending on the flight tests successes.