Putin Makes Plan for Warship Armed with Hypersonic Missiles

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the frigate Admiral Gorshkov is to be armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles and will set out on combat patrol in January 2023, state news agency Tass has reported.

Defense minister Sergey Shoigu said delivery of these missiles to the Russian Navy has already begun. The frigate would be armed with these weapons before "embarking on a mission in the world ocean," he said.

Zircon hypersonic missiles are capable of traveling up to nine times the speed of sound with a strike range that may be greater than 620 miles, Putin has said. One was tested on May 28 this year when it was fired from a warship in the Barents Sea, hitting a navel target in the White Sea over 600 miles away.

Russia has used hypersonic missiles at least once during its conflict with Ukraine, striking the port city of Odesa with Kinzhal missiles in mid-March.

China is also considered a frontrunner in the technology, having carried out multiple tests and displays over 2022. It was reported in October that a Chinese missile had circled the globe before homing in on its target—although China denied carrying out tests. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the country's foreign ministry, told the Financial Times it was a "routine test of a space vehicle."

Geopolitical tensions are now spurring the U.S. to develop hypersonic weapons. Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, director of the Navy's Strategic Systems program, told CNN in October: "Up until just recently, there hasn't been a real driver for us to take that technology and put it into a weapon system. The need was not there. The need is now there, which is why we've got a sense of urgency to get after this."

The U.S. Air Force successfully tested a hypersonic missile off the coast of southern California on December 9. The prototype missile reached speeds of over five times the speed of sound. But what are hypersonic weapons and why are they important to modern warfare? Newsweek explains...

What are hypersonic weapons?

Hypersonic missiles can travel as fast as 25 times the speed of sound—over 19,000 mph.

Hypersonic weapons include hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles. The former is limited to heights of below 100,000 feet, while hypersonic glide vehicles can travel higher in the atmosphere.

Hypersonic weapons travel slower than ballistic weapons, but their atmospheric travel allows them to be more easily maneuvered and therefore are less easily defended against by anti-missile systems.

"They are very difficult to shoot down not just because of their high speed, but also because they fly in a region of the atmosphere that we have not needed to defend before," Iain Boyd, the director of the Center for National Security Initiatives and a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Newsweek. "They fly higher than aircraft and regular missiles but lower than satellites and ballistic missiles.

"Also, modern hypersonic weapons are maneuvering in a way that makes them much more difficult to track than ballistic missiles."

Other types of hypersonic weapon include planes that themselves can travel at speeds greater than Mach 5 (around 3,800 mph), as well as guns firing guided projectiles traveling at the same speed, such as railguns.

How do hypersonic missiles travel so fast?

Hypersonic cruise missiles use scramjet engines to accelerate to high speeds in the atmosphere, while hypersonic glide vehicles use a ballistic first stage to reach high speeds in space, before re-entering the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

"Much of the inside of a hypersonic missile is similar to slower weapons. One unique aspect of a hypersonic missile is the need for special materials on its exterior surface to protect it from the very high temperatures created as it moves through air at incredibly high speed," Boyd said.

"Hypersonic missiles are launched on rockets that accelerate them to their high speeds. To make them go faster, you simply use a larger rocket. The fastest hypersonic missiles could cover 3 to 4 miles per second."

Above their upper limit of around Mach 25, the molecules of the atmosphere disassociate into a plasma as the hypersonic object passes through, making it difficult to communicate with the weapon and therefore harder to control.

What are hypersonic missiles used for?

The primary use of hypersonic technology at the moment is in warfare.

"Hypersonic missiles are used like other missiles to destroy targets. Of particular concern to the U.S. Navy, a hypersonic weapon could disable an aircraft carrier thus limiting our ability to project force far from our homeland. Russia seems to have used them against conventional targets like ammunition dumps," Boyd said.

Hypersonic missiles have so much kinetic energy that they can cause a huge amount of damage without containing many explosives. Additionally, their immense speed allows them to travel extremely far in a short amount of time, giving them a surprise element as well as a large range.

Boyd said that NASA and other commercial space companies use hypersonic vehicles—not missiles—for space exploration around Earth and the solar system: "When a rover lands on Mars, it first enters the Martian atmosphere at hypersonic speed. When astronauts return to Earth from the International Space Station, their capsule enters the atmosphere at hypersonic speed."

There is also hope for a use of this technology on Earth in a non-war context, including shipping and maybe even public transit. Russian-born entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich, who is now based in Switzerland, has announced his new company Destinus's plans for development of a transcontinental cargo drone and passenger planes that can travel at Mach 5 and uses only hydrogen fuel.

"There have been studies by NASA and others looking into hypersonic passenger transportation," Boyd said. "However, it was not possible to sustain supersonic commercial transportation (the Concorde) and the technical challenges for hypersonic are greater. So, I think it will be decades before this becomes a reality."

For now, hypersonic missiles are mainly being used in the Russia-Ukraine war, with Russia moving some planes containing hypersonically capable missiles into Belarus in November. China has also recently equipped several nuclear submarines with hypersonic missiles.

In mid-November, Russia was reported by TASS to have ordered several dozen Zircon hypersonic missiles. On December 1, three MiG-31K fighter jets capable of carrying Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were spotted flying from Belarus to Russia.

Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about hypersonic missiles? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.

Update 01/03/2023 10.58 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to say Destinus is aiming to offer passenger aircraft, that Kokorich is now based in Switzerland and that the speed it aims to reach is Mach 5.