Who is leading the hypersonic race?

Not the United States. Russia and China already “have a number of hypersonic weapons programs and have likely fielded operational hypersonic glide vehicles—potentially armed with nuclear warheads,” the Congressional Research Service reports. U.S. hypersonic weapons are still in the design stage, but they aren’t being designed to carry nukes. That actually makes the challenge more difficult: “As a result, U.S. hypersonic weapons will likely require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems.”

But Russia’s head start, in particular, also comes with caveats. Russia has reportedly used hypersonic missiles in its war against Ukraine, but it doesn’t seem to have made much difference, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley told Congress this month. “Obviously, the distinguishing factor of a hypersonic missile is the speed at which it travels … but other than the speed of the weapon — in terms of its effect on a given target — we are not seeing really significant or game-changing effects to date with the delivery of the small number of hypersonics that the Russians have used,” he said.

How long until the U.S. catches up?

Hard to say. The Pentagon has asked for $4.7 billion for hypersonic research in its 2023 budget, a significant increase over the $3.8 billion it asked for in 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service report. But the Department of Defense “has not established any programs of record for hypersonic weapons, suggesting that it may not have approved either mission requirements for the systems or long-term funding plans.” The recent Air Force missile test is part of a process of “evaluation of potential weapon system concepts and mission sets.” In other words: The U.S. government is officially still trying to figure out if it wants to be in the hypersonic weapons business.