On 27th December, 2019 Russia successfully launched and tested its hypersonic missile, named “Avangard”. It can fly more than 27 times faster than the speed of sound. Normal speed of sound is consider to be 1200 km/hr, which makes Avangard approximately more than 32,000 km/hr fast. It can also carry nuclear warhead weighing up to 2 megatons, which is 2 billion kilograms.
Avangard Capacity
Nuclear missile launched on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Second World War weighed only 4,400 kg and 4,670 kg respectively. The Hypersonic capability of this missile makes it invincible against any missile defense system in the world including America’s Patriot Missile Defense System and Russia’s own S-900. Both of these missile defense systems are currently consider as top notch and both claims to be superior to the other.
How Missile Works ?
Any missile defense system works on predicting the trajectory and speed of the incoming missile and then shooting it down precisely with other missile in the air before it reaches its target on land or water. However, in case of hypersonic missiles such as Avangard, the trajectory of the missile is not fixed and takes its own pattern of flight with hypersonic speed as compared to traditional ballistic missiles with fixed pattern with subsonic or supersonic speed. Therefore ballistic missiles can be shot down with missile defense system where as hypersonic missiles not.
Ideas that are ahead of its time
Avangard word itself means, ‘ideas that are ahead of its time’ and this missile technology is surely ahead of its time, considering the fact that not even US has developed such capability in missile technology who spends more than ten times and China, who spends around three times on defense budget than the Russia. Apart from the global politics, surely we can consider it as a big achievement of the Russia and people who developed this technology.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said …
Russian president Vladimir Putin said, “This achievement in the missile technology will ensure Russia’s defense for many years in the future and it will be deploy and operational by 2021”. However this achievement of Russia is to be a major setback for Missile Non-proliferation Treaty between US and Russian Federation.
Donald Trump Past Views
As per recent interview of US president Donald Trump, “US is going to pull out of this deal and wondered why not Obama did so during his presidency as Russia consistently violating the deal since long time”. Currently, US, China and India are trying to master the hypersonic technology. All these three countries already developed supersonic missiles which can reach up to five to ten times the speed of sound. This launch by Russia, will surely going to give rise to new arms race for hypersonic missiles among these countries. With US and Russia engaged in proxy war in middle-east, this missile test has its own significance. As US presidential elections are nearby, it will be interesting to observe how Trump handles this situation and ensure its citizens that US is still a front runner in the defense technology.
Christina Johnson is a proud born and raised Torontonian. Christina has worked as a journalist for nearly a decade having contributed to several large publications including the Yahoo News and the Financial Post. As a journalist for White Pine Tribune, Christina covers national and international developments.
