Countries with Hypersonic Missiles: How Many Countries have Hypersonic Missiles?

Monday, 7th September 2020, the Defence Research and Development Organisation aka DRDO made India join the elite group and stand forth in the rank after China, Russia and the USA.

DRDO test-fired the HSTDV aka the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle from Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha. It is considered that this huge achievement will ensure the development of hypersonic cruise missiles in future.

At this moment this is the most talked-about incident that took place in 2020 and there is a fair chance that questions from this topic may come in the upcoming UPSC IAS exam. So, let’s waste no more time and dig a little deeper into this topic. Let’s find out how many countries have hypersonic missiles? What are the names of those countries with hypersonic missiles?

What is Hypersonic Missile?

An unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft, this is the most simple description of HSTDV. This is designed to travel at a speed exceeding 3,800 miles per hour. The hypersonic missile speed is much more than other cruise and ballistic missiles.

These are considered to have a combination of cruise missile’s manoeuvring capabilities and ballistic missile’s speed. Unlike traditional missile’s tech, HSTDVs are hard to track due to their speed.

In future, these can be used for low-cost launching of satellites and cruise missiles of low-range. Other than these, there are other civilian applications of HSTDV.

What is Hypersonic Cruise Missile?

The hypersonic cruise missile, running at five times more speed than the speed of sound, is presently the fastest missile in the world.

Following are Some of the Hypersonic Cruise Missile:

3M22 Zircon – Hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile by Russia.
14-X – hypersonic glide vehicle mounted on a VSB-30 rocket by Brazil.
BrahMos-II – Hypersonic missile by India and Russia.
Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle – Hypersonic scramjet demonstration by India.
High-Speed Strike Weapon – Boeing X-51 based missile by the United States.
Kh-90 – Hypersonic air-to-surface cruise missile. Developed in 1990 by the Soviet Union/ Russia.
DF-ZF – DF-17 mounted hypersonic glide vehicle by China.

Which Countries have Hypersonic Missiles?

Before India successfully test-fired the missile, the US, Russia and China were the hypersonic technology countries. Now India has also become a part of these hypersonic technology countries.

Hypersonic Missile Country List

India
USA
China
Russia

As per the reports from CNBC, Australia, Japan and France are also in the queue of pursuing this technology.

Role of India in Hypersonic Missile

For the first time, a successful flight test of the HSTDV was carried by the DRDO. This flight test is the first step on the path that leads to the development of ultra-modern weapons of the new class having the capacity to travel six times more than the speed in which the sound travels.

A solid rocket motor was used for launching this newly tested missile. That rocket motor took the vehicle to an altitude of 30 km. There the aerodynamic heat shields got separated at a hypersonic Mach number.

This success takes India’s technology development to a higher level and it is considered that this will lead you to much more development of critical technologies.

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