Hypersonics

DARPA to develop hypersonic 'Glide Breaker' that would knock missile threats out of the sky

The U.S. Defense Department has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for a system that would knock threatening missiles out of the sky.

A company called Aerojet Rocketdyne was awarded $19.6 million to develop "enabling technologies" for the system, which will be known as Glide Breaker, it said earlier this month.

“Advancing hypersonic technology is a national security imperative,” Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president, said in a statement. “Our team is proud to apply our decades of experience developing hypersonic and missile propulsion technologies to the Glide Breaker program.”

The Glide Breaker program is part of America's efforts to counteract hypersonic vehicles, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).