France has just fired a sounding rocket on which was mounted the first hypersonic glider developed in the country.
Hypersonic technology is of increasing interest to major nations, whether for air transport or for military purposes. France does not want to be left behind in this area, which is why it has just carried out its first test of a hypersonic glider.
V-Max makes its maiden flight
Since the war in Ukraine, the general public has become acquainted with a new type of weapon: hypersonic missiles. Russia has been boasting about this technology for a few years now, which also attracts the interest of the two Chinese and American giants… but also of France.
Proof of this is that the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) has just announced that it has fired from the Biscarrosse (Landes) test center on Monday June 26 a hypersonic glider named V-Max, mounted on a rocket -probe. This vector of new interest will eventually also be able to carry explosive charges up to the nuclear warhead.
Trials will continue in subsequent years.
The advantage of this technology is twofold. First, as its name suggests, it allows the glider to reach incredibly fast speeds, exceeding Mach 5, or more than 6,000 km/h. But in addition to this velocity, which makes it an already difficult object to follow, the hypersonic glider can change direction while preserving its very high speed. This makes its interception by a missile extremely complicated.
The glider that the inhabitants of the southwestern territory were able to observe in the middle of the evening is still only a prototype, developed as a demonstrator by the French aerospace group ArianeGroup. The latter wants to move forward quickly and is already planning the construction of a second version, called V-Max 2, whose testing is scheduled for the period 2024-2025. And who will allow France to maintain its status as an important military player at the global level?
Source : France info
11