Meet the Mako Missile – A Hypersonic “Needle in the Sky”

The US military’s hypersonic missile progress is better than you think

Mako hypersonic missile - Lockheed Martin

If the press is to be believed, Russia and China are years ahead of US hypersonic missile development.

After all, we’ve heard plenty about Putin’s air-launched Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, the hypersonic glide vehicle Avangard, the ship-launched 3M22 Zircon, and the Kh-95 – also air-launched.

Clickbait-y headlines pop up from time to time on otherwise reputable sites like Business Insider or Defense News touting Russia’s “unstoppable” super weapons.

Meanwhile, hypersonics news coming out of the United States is “slim pickings.”

But what if these news reports about Russian and Chinese progress play right into DoD hands?

After all, if the true depth of US hypersonic missile development were known, and the voting public found out how mature US hypersonics actually are, Congressional funding might be diverted elsewhere… For instance, to a new destroyer or other expensive program.

No, it is in the best financial interests of defense contractors and the government alike to let Russia and China stoke the fires of competition.

In reality, the United States has been working on hypersonic missile technology for the better part of 30 years and has at least six known hypersonic missile programs (likely dozens more) at various stages of development.

Just last summer, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that four of the six programs are not fully taking advantage of modern engineering techniques. (They’re talking mostly about 3D printing or “additive manufacturing.”)

The GAO also stated that the US could reduce the cost and schedule of hypersonic weapon development by following leading practices.

So, while the government and defense contractors would normally keep top-secret weapons development, well, secret… When they are attacked directly, like in this GAO report, they usually respond.

Lockheed Martin’s Mako Missile: Hypersonic Speed in a Shark-Sized Package

Such was the case with Lockheed’s recent showcase of the Mako hypersonic missile.

The Mako missile is a Mach 5+ wonder that’s as compact as it is lethal. It’s the first hypersonic missile in the world designed to fit snugly within the internal weapons bays of small stealth aircraft like the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II.

We don’t actually know how fast the Mako is because of pesky classifications, except we know that its speed is greater than Mach 5, (3,806 miles per hour) because that’s the minimum speed something needs to go before we classify it as “hypersonic.”

And yes, it’s named after the fastest shark in the ocean—because apparently, calling it “Faster-Than-Your-Ex’s-Texts - Missile” was too much of a mouthful.