The U.S. Air Force is working with defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Aerojet to develop a new hypersonic cruise missile. The weapon, known as the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW, or “Hacksaw”) will be used to strike time-critical targets in places with strong enemy air defenses. The missile’s sheer speed, which will be a minimum of Mach 5, will allow it to penetrate strong enemy air defenses and reach targets before they relocate.

According to Military.com , the hypersonic weapon will follow in the footsteps of the X-51A Waverider scramjet-powered hypersonic vehicle, as shown in the photo above. Boeing built four Waverider vehicles for the Air Force in the early 2010s. The last test , launched from a B-52H Stratofortress off the coast of California in 2013, saw a Waverider hit Mach 5.1 and fly 230 miles in six minutes. The test validated the hypersonic weapon concept but the research—at least in the non-classified world—stopped there.

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Hacksaw is described as a cruise missile, capable of being carried by fighters and bombers. The B-1B Lancer bomber, for example, could carry between four and eight hypersonic weapons in its internal weapons bays. There’s a little bit of confusion about the program, however: In August 2018, Aviation Week & Space Technology described Hacksaw as a “solid rocket powered, GPS guided missile.” At roughly the same time, FlightGlobal described it as an “air-breathing, ramjet-powered cruise missile.”

Both publications are likely right and together tell the story: Hacksaw needs both a rocket booster and ramjet. Ramjets can propel aircraft at hypersonic speeds, but they can only start working while already moving through the air at a high rate of speed. Hacksaw would need a rocket booster to accelerate it to supersonic speeds, whereupon the ramjet engine would kick in to give it a hypersonic push.

The Air Force plans to have Hacksaw ready for action by 2022 . The U.S. Military is pushing into hypersonic weapons in a big way, with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force all pursuing multiple projects. The U.S. Air Force is not only developing Hacksaw, but also the AGM-183A Advanced Rapid Response Weapon, ARRW (“Arrow”).

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