Zircon hypersonic cruise missile

In news– Recently, Russia has successfully test fired a Zircon missile from a nuclear submarine.

About Zircon missile-

It is a scramjet powered maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile.
It can travel more than five times the speed of sound and manoeuvre in mid-flight, making them much harder to track and intercept than traditional projectiles.
It could hit targets at sea and on land with a range of 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
The Zircon looks set to join Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles that were put into service in 2019 and the air-launched Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles in Russia’s arsenal.
Russia had placed into service its first Avangard hypersonic missile in December 2019, making it the first country to claim an operable hypersonic weapon.

Hypersonic technology in India-

India has also developed Hypersonic Technology as the DRDO successfully launched the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) in its maiden test.
The HSTDV was an unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic speed flight.
It could cruise at a speed of Mach 6 and move up to an altitude of 32.5 km in 20 seconds.
According to DRDO, besides its utility for long-range cruise missiles of the future, the dual-use technology will have multiple civilian applications also.
It can be used for launching satellites at a low cost too.

What are hypersonic missiles?

A hypersonic missile is a vehicle that achieves a speed five times faster than the speed of sound, crossing Mach 5.
These missiles travel at a speed of around 6,115 km per hour, with a combination of technology and manoeuvrability of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
These systems are one of the more recent warfare technologies being developed by China, North Korea, Russia and the United States.
They are more agile than the typical intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBM.
They can travel much faster than current nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles at low altitudes, can switch direction in flight and do not follow a predictable arc like conventional missiles, making them much harder to track and intercept.