Project Force: Hypersonic weapons and the new space race

In the never-ending quest to find weapons that will give a country the power it needs to knock out its adversaries, a new type of weapon has emerged: ultra-fast “hypersonic” missiles that can change targets anywhere on Earth within an hour. Outer space – the new ‘warfighting domain’ While this new class of weapon is being developed at breakneck pace, a new frontier is also opening up in the quest for military supremacy – outer space. NATO has declared space to be a key “warfighting domain”, the United States has created a new branch of its military called Space Force and unmanned spacecraft are sent up for months at a time on classified missions. With new fast and reusable spacecraft in the pipeline, unmanned craft already being regularly launched, offensive and defensive satellite operations being planned and threats from several powers to be dealt with, Space Force has already morphed from a largely theoretical organisation to an integral part of the US military with rapidly growing capabilities. These new classes of weapon – ultra-fast hypersonic missiles that can hit any target on the planet within an hour as well as killer satellites that can sabotage and destroy other satellites – and the advent of increasingly sophisticated military spacecraft are all helping to reshape the way future wars will be fought.