Incredible Breakthroughs in Modern Warfare that Will Leave You Speechless!

24. Hypersonic Missile – X51A Waverider

The AFRL has been developing a hypersonic propulsion system since the 1990s. The goal of the project was to create a hypersonic missile that could be carried by a B-52 to an altitude of 15km and then released to “do its thing.” It wasn’t until 2003 when a scramjet engine was added to the equation that the plan could be realized.

By utilizing a rocket booster and a scramjet engine, the X-51A can achieve hypersonic speeds of up to 6,440 km/h. Although the X-51A Waverider has not yet reached Mach 6, it reached Mach 5 during a test flight in 2013, traveling at speeds over 5,300 km/h for 3.5 minutes. At that time, no other hypersonic flight had lasted that long.