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China has admitted that it is developing its first hypersonic air-to-air missiles. They have passed heat resistance tests, scientists from the project reported, quoted by the South China Morning Post.
The new weapons system, which could pose an unprecedented threat to US military aircraft, including the B-21 stealth bomber, which is currently undergoing flight tests.
Details of the final tests of full-scale prototypes were published in a peer-reviewed article in the Chinese journal Equipment Environmental Engineering last month. The tests were conducted in a specially heated wind tunnel designed for Mars missions for China’s space program.
“By heating the gas with an electric arc, this type of tunnel can generate hot air flows with temperatures of thousands to tens of thousands of degrees Celsius,” scientists Chen Gong and Huang Yiming of the China Academy of Aerospace Engineering (CAMA) wrote in the article.
The arc-heated tunnel can operate continuously for more than an hour, but it consumes a huge amount of energy, making it extremely expensive to operate, the scientists said. For this reason, the tunnel is mainly used for the most challenging space missions, such as simulations of the landing of China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft on Mars.
CAMA, located in Luoyang, Henan Province, and affiliated with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, is the main developer and supplier of air-to-air missiles for the Chinese Air Force.
The new hypersonic air-to-air missiles can shoot down a wide range of new weapons platforms.
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