New Delhi: Amid media reports of China having set up a hypersonic wind tunnel at a facility in Beijing’s Huairou District, a just-released key US Department of Defence (DoD) report has said that China is pursuing an effort to pair a hypersonic glide vehicle DF-ZF with the DF-17 missiles. The US DoD report said: “China has invested heavily in and is testing a hypersonic glide vehicle, the DF-ZF, which, according to DOD and other observers, would be paired with the DF-17 medium-range missile system.”
“The DF-17/DF-ZF likely is aimed at evading ballistic missile defenses, and could be the first intermediate-range hypersonic glide vehicle to be fielded.” The DF-17 (Dong Feng-17) is a medium range missile system with speeds ranging from Mach 5-10 (5-10 times the speed of sound or 1.72-3.43 km per second). It was on display for the first time as part of the PRC’s 70th anniversary parade in 2019.
The report added that in 2020, a US military commander had also suggested that the DF-41 also could carry a nuclear hypersonic glide. China places a huge premium on developing and testing hypersonic glide vehicles as it sees in it a platform to counter and overcome the ballistic missile defence systems, Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaisance (ISR) systems, and precision strike capabilities of its rivals like the US.
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Not just the speed, but the accuracy, trajectory and maneuverability make such weapons very difficult to intercept, detect and track. Other cutting edge technologies Beijing is pursuing include directed energy weapons, electromagnetic rail-guns, and space-based military capabilities.
According to the media reports, China claims that the hypersonic wind tunnel at Huairou, called the JF-22 wind tunnel, have the capability of simulating flights at Mach 30, or, 30 times the speed of sound—much anything similar in the US. Such test tunnels are critical to the development of hypersonic weapons. The hypersonic glide vehicles are being developed at the ‘Near Space Flight Vehicle Research Institute’ which operates under the China Aerospace Science Industry Corporation.
US, Russia and India
While the US is understood to be actively developing hypersonic glide vehicles, Russia had declared that it had deployed its first such weapon in 2019. For 2021-22, the US DoD has sought a huge 3.8 billion dollars for hypersonic-related research and development activity, a further rise from the 3.2 billion dollars it got for 2020-21, reflecting the keen interest the development of such platforms have sparked.
In the US, such platforms are being mainly developed by the US Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program while the Army and the air force are also pursuing their own initiatives. Describing it as a ‘landmark event’, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu declared on December 27, 2019, that the first regiment of ‘Avanguard’ hypersonic glide vehicles had been deployed at 10 AM Moscow time. The deployment was suspected to be somewhere in the Urals.
India is not too far behind in hypersonic technology, On December 19, 2020, an advanced Hypersonic Wind Tunnel (HWT) test facility was inaugurated by defence minister Rajnath Singh in Hyderabad. The facility will simulate Mach No 5 to 12. A government release said: "It is an indigenous development and an outcome of synergistic partnership with Indian industries. The facility has the capability to simulate hypersonic flow over a wide spectrum and will play a major role in the realization of highly complex futuristic aerospace and defence systems.”
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