Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have agreed to accelerate their testing of hypersonic technology as more countries acquire the weapons.
India recently announced it had successfully tested the weapons. There are also reports that both North Korea and Iran have also launched successful test flights. Japan, Israel, South Korea, and Brazil are working on development.
Hypersonic weapons are long-range strike missiles that can travel five times the speed of sound (about 6,200 kilometres per hour), known as Mach 5.
Existing ballistic missiles can also reach hypersonic speeds, but hypersonic weapons are highly manoeuvrable, meaning they are easy to direct and control in flight. Ballistic missiles generally have set paths that cannot be altered once they’re launched….