US Needs to Boost Hypersonic Missile Production to Counter China Threat: Pentagon Official

The U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle emerges from its rocket nose cone and prepares to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, in this illustration. Courtesy of DARPA

The United States must boost its production of hypersonic weapons if it’s to adequately counter and deter the capabilities being developed by China, according to a senior Pentagon official.

“I would say that everything we’re doing in terms of the interceptors, the strike weapons, isn’t going to make a difference unless we have sufficient quantities,” said Gillian Bussey, director of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office at the Department of Defense.