What the Chinese hypersonic missile means to the world ...

ID: Amid its larger push to dominate the modern-age space race, China has reportedly gone a step further in militarizing the arena as it tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. According to Financial Times, Beijing tested the vehicle in August, which circled the globe before speeding towards its target demonstrating a unique space capability developed by the dragon.

The report late on Saturday said the Chinese military launched a rocket carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle that flew through low-orbit space, circling the globe before cruising towards its target, which it missed by about two dozen miles.

"The test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised," the report said, citing people briefed on the intelligence. Quoting sources, FT reported that the weapon could, in theory, fly over the South Pole, posing a major challenge for the US military.

The speculation of the secret launch emerged from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which said that it had launched a Long March 2C rocket, the 77th launch in July followed by an August 24 announcement releasing details of a 79th flight, but there was no detail about the 78th launch, sparking speculations.

WHAT IS A HYPERSONIC MISSILE?

As countries remain focused on North Korea for its nuclear-capable missile tests, China has reportedly launched a hypersonic missile secretly. A hypersonic missile is a vehicle that achieves a speed five times faster than the speed of sound, crossing Mach 5. These missiles travel at a speed of around 6,115 km per hour, with a combination of technology and manoeuvrability of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Hypersonic weapons can take missile warfare, particularly nuclear warfare, to a new -- and, for many, frightening -- level. According to reports, they can travel much faster than current nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles at low altitudes, can switch direction in flight and do not follow a predictable arc like conventional missiles, making them much harder to track and intercept.

NOT A MISSILE, SAYS CHINA

China, acknowledging the launch, said that it has tested a hypersonic “vehicle” and not a nuclear-capable hypersonic “missile” as was reported. Asked for his reaction to the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing that a test of a hypersonic vehicle was carried out.

“It is a vehicle, not a missile,” Zhao said, adding that as we understand this test, it is just a routine space vehicle test to verify the repeated use of technology of the vehicle.

“This is of great significance to reducing the cost and can also provide an affordable and cheap return means for the peaceful use of space for humanity,” he said.

A GLOBAL RUSH FOR HYPERSONIC

China is not the first to develop hypersonic capabilities, while the country first showcased its hypersonic glide vehicle DF-17 during its national day military parade, the US had in 2020 announced a successful test of an unarmed prototype hypersonic missile. The Pentagon had said in March 2020 that a test glide vehicle flew at hypersonic speeds -- more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5 -- to a designated impact point.

Russia has also shown hypersonic capabilities as it declared it had placed into service its first Avangard hypersonic missile in December 2019, making it the first country to claim an operable hypersonic weapon. According to AFP, Russian officials claimed that in tests the missile had reached speeds of up to Mach 27, roughly 33,000 kilometres per hour.

The US has recognized that the hypersonic capability can catalyse the threat of nuclear conflict between rivals. Washington is meanwhile also pouring money into advanced missile defenze research to find ways to protect against hypersonics.

Hypersonics and the B-1 - talk at Dyess AFB gives clues to deployment.

Two officials from Boeing, including former Dyess Air Force Base commander Robert  Gass, detailed efforts to speed hypersonic weapons capabilities for U.S. at the quarterly meeting Tuesday of the Military Affairs Committee of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce.

Specifically, each spoke to how that would affect the B-1B bomber. Until the full use of the B-21, which is due at Dyess no earlier than the mid-2020s, it's essential, they said, that the B-1 continue to be a first-choice bomber option. The durable B-52 also is up for modernization, again meaning the B-1 mission is vital in the interim.

Gass, who left Dyess in 2010 and retired as vice commander of the 8th Air Force, now is strategic development and investment manager for Boeing's bombers program. Both Gass and Dan Ruder, B-1 advanced programs manager, work in Oklahoma City.

The plan basically is to reactivate the capabilities of the B-1 to accommodate these kinds of weapons that are fired externally. He called hypersonic weapons "the next big thing in bombers."

Asked if that also meant the B-21, currently in development, Ruder only could speak to outfitting the B-1 for this capability.

DefenseNews reported recently that five test B-21 Raiders are in production in Palmdale, Calif. A first test flight could come in 2022.

Gass said hypersonic weapons "go real fast," which drew chuckles for its simplicity. They found out later from Ruder that fast means Mach 20, or more than 14,000 mph.

"That's extremely fast," Ruder said.

There are six "hard points" on the aircraft, however, that, with work and "sustainment dollars," the B-1 again can be made ready.

"It's not going to be cheap," Ruder said. The project will have to navigate tighter defense budgeting - "headwinds," Gass called it.

Gass said only the B-1s still active will be fitted for hypersonic missiles. The 17 Lancers sent to the "boneyard" for storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, to his knowledge, will not be part of this program.

To outfit the bomber, Ruder said a "load adaptive modular," or LAM, pylon concept has been developed that will allow two missiles to be attached to the bomber at the six points.

The target goal for development is September 2022, when testing could begin.

The biggest missiles, he said, weigh 5,000 pounds and are more than 20 feet in length. A bomber is needed as opposed to a lighter weight fighter to house more missiles.

"Numbers are important," Ruder said.

There are several hypersonic programs in development, Gass said, so as "not to put all of our eggs in one basket."

READ MORE HERE

YAHOO: Trump and CIA considered kidnapping or killing Julian Assange

THE HILL: 

A report from Yahoo News published Sunday says that the Trump administration and CIA considered kidnapping WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017 and even raised the prospect of assassinating him amid concerns he may be planning an escape of his own.

Citing conversations with more than 30 former U.S. intelligence and security officials, Yahoo reported that "sketches" and "options" for how an assassination operation could be carried out were requested. One former official told the site that these conversations were taking place “at the highest levels.”

Though the CIA had been monitoring Assange for many years, the U.S. government reportedly ramped up its campaign against him following the "Vault 7" data leak of CIA hacking tools and Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential race.

Assange is currently imprisoned in London after being arrested in April 2019.

According to the Yahoo report, former CIA director Mike Pompeo wanted revenge on Assange and was described by one Trump national security official as being "completely detached from reality because they were so embarrassed about Vault 7."

“There was an inappropriate level of attention to Assange given the embarrassment, not the threat he posed in context,” one official said. "We should never act out of a desire for revenge.”

U.S. intelligence officials were supposedly provoked by rumors that Assange was planning an escape attempt from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had taken asylum. Russian intelligence was supposedly present around the embassy to help facilitate an escape. Yahoo noted that WikiLeaks had helped to facilitate U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden's escape to Russia from Hong Kong.

If Russian officials were able to get Assange onto a plane, one official told Yahoo that agents were prepared to block the plane with a car on the runway, shoot out the tires or even crash into a car carrying Assange.

Responding to Yahoo, Trump denied ever having considered ordering the assassination of Assange, saying, “It’s totally false, it never happened."

“In fact, I think he’s been treated very badly,” added Trump.

Following the leak of the Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential race, Trump proclaimed, "I love WikiLeaks," and he reportedly offered Assange a pardon if he would say that Russia was not involved in the 2016 Democratic National Committee hack.

Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange in the U.S., told Yahoo, “As an American citizen, I find it absolutely outrageous that our government would be contemplating kidnapping or assassinating somebody without any judicial process simply because he had published truthful information."

“My hope and expectation is that the U.K. courts will consider this information and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the U.S.,” said Pollack.

According to Yahoo, there was no indication that the most extreme measures meant to target Assange were ever approved, largely due to objections from White House lawyers.

“While people think the Trump administration didn’t believe in the rule of law, they had good lawyers who were paying attention to it,” one former official told the news organization.

When reached for comment by The Hill, the CIA declined to comment on the matter.

Raytheon's hypersonic HAWC has first successful test flight says DARPA

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The United States has tested an air-breathing hypersonic weapon capable of speeds faster than five times the speed of sound, marking the first successful test of the class of weapon since 2013, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The test took place as the United States and its global rivals quicken their pace to build hypersonic weapons - the next generation of arms that rob adversaries of reaction time and traditional defeat mechanisms.

In July, Russia said it had successfully tested a Tsirkon(Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile, a weapon President Vladimir Putin has touted as part of a new generation of missile systems without equal in the world. read more

The free flight test of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) occurred last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said in a statement.

Hypersonic weapons travel in the upper atmosphere at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kilometers (3,853 miles) per hour.

"The missile, built by Raytheon Technologies (RTX.N), was released from an aircraft seconds before its Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) engine kicked on," DARPA said.

"The DoD (Department of Defense) has identified hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic capabilities as the highest technical priorities for our nation's security," said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon's Missiles & Defense business unit.

"The United States, and our allies, must have the ability to deter the use of these weapons and the capabilities to defeat them," he said.

In 2019, Raytheon teamed up with Northrop Grumman to develop and produce engines for hypersonic weapons. Northrop's scramjet engine technology uses the vehicle's high speed to forcibly compress incoming air before combustion to enable sustained flight at hypersonic speeds.

"The HAWC vehicle operates best in oxygen-rich atmosphere, where speed and maneuverability make it difficult to detect in a timely way. It could strike targets much more quickly than subsonic missiles and has significant kinetic energy even without high explosives," DARPA said in the release.
Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington Editing by Dan Grebler and Mark Potter

Ohio man sentenced after 'top secret' Air Force documents found in home

WHO TV 7 DAYTON — A Fairborn man who pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of illegally taking thousands of pages of classified documents from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was sentenced to prison Tuesday, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

>>PREVIOUS REPORT: Over 1,000 top secret Air Force documents found at Fairborn home; FBI investigating

Izaak Kemp, 36, pleaded guilty in February to federal charges. He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for illegally taking about 2,500 pages of classified documents he got while working as a contractor at WPAFB, a DOJ spokesperson said in a media release.

Kemp worked as a contractor for the Air Force Research Laboratory between 2016 and 2019 and later worked for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center and had “Top Secret” security clearance.

“Despite having training on various occasions on how to safeguard classified material, Kemp took 112 classified documents and retained them at his home,” the DOJ spokesperson said.

During a May 2019 search warrant at Kemp’s Fairborn home, those documents containing thousands of pages of material classified on the “secret” level were found, the spokesperson said.

Kemp was initially under investigation by Fairborn police for allegedly growing marijuana at the home, which resulted in several plants being seized during the 2019 search as well.

The case escalated to the FBI when investigators discovered the documents, which they say were “related to Top Secret Special Access Programs” and were “clearly marked as classified.”

Such files are deemed so sensitive they require additional security beyond what’s normally provided for classified files and should only be stored in segregated, highly protected environments.

It has not been revealed in previous reports what was contained in the files.

Previously, Wright-Patt representatives said Kemp was never authorized to take the documents from NASIC and that he would have to bypass security checkpoints to get them out of the office.