REUTOV, Moscow region. Feb 1 (Interfax-AVN) - R&D capacities make it possible to create hypersonic missiles traveling five times faster than the speed of sound before 2020, General Designer and Director of NPO Mashinostroyenia, a component of the Tactical Missiles Corporation, Alexander Leonov told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
"We are confident of the possibility to travel at the Mach 5 speed (the Mach number is a dimensionless quantity representing the ratio of speed of an object moving through a fluid and the local speed of sound). It is clear how to reach this speed with the existent engines," Leonov said. He was taking part in a panel discussion of the annual Academic Readings on Cosmonautics.
It is "absolutely realistic" to reach these missile speeds by 2020, he said.
NPO Mashinostroyenia "has just begun" to design the hypersonic modification of the BrahMos missile. Requirements for the missile and its conceptual design are being set. The designers set an ambitious goal of the Mach 7-8 speed, he said.