ReportWire

Tag: Hypersonic Missiles

  • Rocket maker receives largest single job incentive award in Colorado history

    [ad_1]

    The Colorado Economic Development Commission on Thursday approved its largest single incentive awards ever, extending $35.2 million in state tax credits to a rapidly growing developer and producer of solid rocket motors and hypersonic propulsion systems, matching the description of a company called Ursa Major.

    In line with the practice of cloaking the names of applicants, the award was made to Project Ladybug. The Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits are conditioned on the unnamed company creating up to 1,850 jobs at an average annual wage of $128,108 over the next eight years.

    Project Ladybug is a local aerospace company with 311 employees, including 255 in Colorado, which matches the headcount of Berthoud-based Ursa Major. The company told the state it was considering expanding in Mississippi, California and Ohio, a state where Ursa Major has a manufacturing plant. It appears the company will locate its expanded headquarters in Broomfield County.

    The most telling clue is that the company in question received an Advanced Industries program award of $250,000 in 2017 from the state. That matches Ursa Major to a T.

    Ursa Major raised $100 million in equity and $50 million in debt commitments in a Series E round that closed on Nov. 18, and now has an estimated value of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, according to CB Insights. That would make it a “unicorn” like SpaceX, just a lot smaller. The company has also disclosed that it has secured $115 million in contracts this year from commercial and defense industry customers.

    Among the jobs it expects to add are roles in human resources, legal, finance, IT, market and compliance, as well as in production and research and development. Ursa Major broke ground on a new 400-acre solid rocket motor test site in Weld County on Sept. 10. That facility will allow it to design, build and test large solid rocket motor systems more efficiently.

    “This facility represents a major step forward in our ability to deliver qualified SRMs that are scalable, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving threat environment,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major, in a release. “It’s a clear demonstration of our commitment and ability to rapidly advance and expand the American-made solid rocket motor industrial base that the country needs, ensuring warfighters will have the quality and quantity of SRMs needed to meet mission demands.”

    The company is also making advances in liquid engine designs for hypersonic missiles, an emerging weapons system where the U.S. lags China and Russia. Those faster missiles can evade defense systems more easily and hit their targets more quickly, which is why the Department of Defense is pushing hard to close the gap.

    Ursa Major’s Hadley H13 engine has been tested at sustained Mach 5+ hypersonic speeds and the company is also developing the Draper, a storable liquid engine with hypersonic applications.

    Joe Laurienti, a former engineer at Blue Origin and SpaceX, founded Ursa Major Technologies in 2015. The company has grown to be an important player in the Front Range’s push to be recognized as “Aerospace Alley” or the next Silicon Valley of defense and aerospace.

    [ad_2]

    Aldo Svaldi

    Source link

  • Russia tested a new nuclear-capable missile, Putin says

    [ad_1]

    Russia tested a new nuclear-capable and powered cruise missile fit to confound existing defenses, inching closer to deploying it to its military, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks released on Sunday.

    The announcement, which followed years of tests of the Burevestnik missile, comes as part of nuclear messaging from the Kremlin, which has resisted Western pressure for a ceasefire in Ukraine and strongly warned the U.S. and other NATO allies against sanctioning strikes deep inside Russia with longer-range Western weapons.

    A video released by the Kremlin showed Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues, receiving a report from Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of general staff, who told the Russian leader that the Burevestnik covered 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) in a key test Tuesday.

    Gerasimov said the Burevestnik, or storm petrel in Russian, spent 15 hours in the air, adding “that’s not the limit.”

    Little is known about the Burevestnik, which was code-named Skyfall by NATO, and many Western experts have been skeptical about it, noting that a nuclear engine could be highly unreliable.

    In this image made from video released by the Russian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks while visiting one of the command posts of the Joint Group of Forces. 

    Russian Presidential Press Office via AP


    When Putin first revealed that Russia was working on the weapon in his 2018 state-of-the-nation address, he claimed it would have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe undetected by missile defense systems.

    Many observers argue that such a missile could be difficult to handle and pose an environmental threat. The U.S. and the Soviet Union worked on nuclear-powered missiles during the Cold War, but they eventually shelved the projects, considering them too hazardous.

    The Burevestnik reportedly suffered an explosion in August 2019 during tests at a navy range on the White Sea, killing five nuclear engineers and two service members and resulting in a brief spike in radioactivity that fueled fears in a nearby city.

    Russian officials never identified the weapon involved, but the U.S. said it was the Burevestnik.

    “We need to determine the possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying these weapons to our armed forces,” Putin told Gerasimov.

    The Russian leader also claimed it was invulnerable to current and future missile defenses, due to its almost unlimited range and unpredictable flight path.

    Kirill Dmitriev, a top Putin aide who was in the U.S. as the video surfaced, said his delegation informed U.S. colleagues of the “successful testing” of the Burevestnik, which he said was an “absolutely new class” of weapon.

    Earlier this week, Putin directed drills of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces that featured practice missile launches. The exercise came as his planned summit on Ukraine with U.S. President Trump was put on hold.

    The Kremlin said that the maneuvers involved all parts of Moscow’s nuclear triad, including intercontinental ballistic missiles that were test-fired from launch facilities in northwestern Russia and a submarine in the Barents Sea. The drills also involved Tu-95 strategic bombers firing long-range cruise missiles.

    The exercise tested the skills of military command structures, the Kremlin said in a statement on Wednesday.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ukraine says at least 31 people killed, children’s hospital hit in major Russian missile attack

    Ukraine says at least 31 people killed, children’s hospital hit in major Russian missile attack

    [ad_1]

    Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia launched dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine on Monday in an attack that killed at least 31 people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv, officials said. The rare day-time Russian barrage came as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Warsaw, the Polish government said, before he flies to a NATO summit in Washington.

    Explosions rang out and black smoke could be seen rising from the centre of Kyiv, AFP journalists reported.

    Pictures distributed by officials from the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv showed people digging through mounds of rubble, black smoke billowing over a gutted building and medical staff wearing blood-stained scrubs. Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said two people died at the hospital as a result of the strike, including a 30-year-old doctor, and another 16 were wounded, seven of them children.

    Klitschko said people’s voices were heard from underneath the rubble as rescuers continued digging through the debris. 

    Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that was damaged during a Russian missile strikes, in Kyiv
    People watch as rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital that was damaged during a Russian missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 8, 2024.

    Gleb Garanich/REUTERS


    “Russian terrorists once again massively attacked Ukraine with missiles. Different cities: Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk,” Zelenskyy said, listing major civilians hubs in the south and east of the country.

    “More than 40 missiles of various types. Residential buildings, infrastructure and a children’s hospital were damaged,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.

    The Ukrainian Air Force said the attack included Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, one of the most advanced weapons in the Russian arsenal. Hypersonic missiles can fly at far greater than the speed of sound, making them very difficult to detect and intersect using the missile defense systems available today. Russia has used Kinzhals in previous attacks on Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion, but is thought to use the weapons sparingly as they are in limited supply. 

    Russian forces have repeatedly targeted the capital with massive barrages since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the last major attack on Kyiv with drones and missiles was last month. In addition to the continuous aerial bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and power infrastructure, Russia has also pushed its territorial gains in recent months, making incremental advances along the front line that stretches from Ukraine’s northern to southern borders.

    Rescuers work at a site of a building damaged during a Russian missile strikes, in Kyiv
    Rescuers work around a wing of the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, after the building was severely damaged during a Russian missile strike, July 8, 2024.

    Gleb Garanich/REUTERS


    The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) said its initial assessment found that Moscow had struck the Kyiv children’s hospital with a KH-101 strategic cruise missile, while Andriy Yermak, senior advisor to Zelenksyy, said the projectile “contains dozens of microelectronics manufactured in NATO countries.”  

    Russian officials acknowledged the massive missile strike on Monday but denied, as they always do, targeting any civilian infrastructure. The Defense Ministry in Moscow, in statements reported by the country’s state-run media, said the strike was a response to attempts by Ukrainian forces “to strike Russian energy and economic facilities,” and it claimed it had hit Ukrainian “military industry facilities in Ukraine and aviation bases of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

    The Russian defense ministry said, without offering evidence, that the images of destruction in Kyiv were “due to the fall of a Ukrainian air defense missile.”

    United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown harshly condemned Monday’s wave of Russian strikes, saying in reference to the hospital that was hit: “It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war.”

    Missile Attack In Kyiv
    A child is treated after the Russian army launched a rocket attack on the “Ohmatdyt” children’s clinic on July 8, 2024, in Kyiv, Ukraine.

    Vlada Liberova/Libkos/Getty


    Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 30 of the 38 missiles launched by Russia in Monday’s deadly attack.  

    In Zelenskyy’s hometown Kryvyi Rih, which has been repeatedly targed by Russian bombardments, the strikes killed at least 10 and wounded over 30, the mayor said.

    “In Dnipro, a high-rise building and an enterprise were damaged. A service station was damaged. There are wounded,” the Dnipropetrovsk governor Sergiy Lysak added.

    In the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have taken a string of villages in recent weeks, the regional governor said three people were killed in Pokrovsk — a town that had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.

    There was no immedate comment on the strikes from the Kremlin but it insists its forces do not target civilian infrastructure.

    Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that was damaged during a Russian missile strikes, in Kyiv
    Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, soon after officials said the facility was severely damaged by a wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, July 8, 2024.

    Gleb Garanich/REUTERS


    “This shelling targeted civilians, hit infrastructure, and the whole world should see today the consequences of terror, which can only be responded to by force,” the head of the presidential administration in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media, following the attack.

    Zelenskyy and other officials in Kyiv have been urging Ukraine’s allies to send more air defence systems, including Patriots, to the war-battered country to help fend off fatal Russian aerial bombardments.

    “Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes,” Zelensky said in another post on social media.

    CBS News’ Anhelina Shamlii contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • U.S. hardware helps Ukraine fend off increasingly heavy Russian missile and drone attacks

    U.S. hardware helps Ukraine fend off increasingly heavy Russian missile and drone attacks

    [ad_1]

    Kharkiv, Ukraine — Russia launched some of its heaviest air attacks to date targeting Ukraine‘s capital and other major cities overnight and into Monday morning. Videos posted online showed children and adults running for shelters as air raid sirens blared in Kyiv.

    The head of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a social media post that “up to 40 missiles” and “around 35 drones” were launched, of which virtually all were shot down by the country’s air defenses. Emergency workers doused burning rocket debris that fell onto a road in northern Kyiv, and Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said fragments that fell in another district set a building alight, killing at least one person and injuring another.

    Aftermath of Rocket attack in Ukraine's Kyiv
    Police inspect debris after parts of a Russian rocket, shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, fell onto a street in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 29, 2023.

    Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu Agency/Getty


    Searchlights combed the night skies over Kyiv, hunting for exploding drones before they could hurtle into the ground. It was the second night in a row that swarms of the Iranian-made aircraft were sent buzzing over the capital’s skies. 

    Video captured the moment one of them was shot down near the northern city of Chernihiv. That city is only about 20 miles from the border with Belarus, an autocratic country whose dictator has let Vladimir Putin use its soil to launch attacks on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

    russia-ukraine-belarus-map.jpg

    CBS News


    Kyiv claimed that 58 out of the staggering 59 drones launched overnight were shot down. That success is thanks not only to the high-tech air defense systems that are forced into action almost nightly, but also by Ukrainians putting some good old-fashioned technology to use.

    At an undisclosed military site, we watched as Ukrainian forces tested powerful new searchlights that help them locate those low-tech drones in the sky so they can be targeted from the ground.

    But the other, more lethal threats flying at Ukraine require more advanced defenses. The arrival of American-made Patriot missile defense systems this spring has enabled the Ukrainians to intercept more powerful Russian missiles.


    Ukraine’s Patriot missile systems arrive as Kyiv aims to boost defenses against Russia

    03:49

    Oleksandr Ruvin, Kiyv’s chief forensic investigator, showed us what was left of a Russian hypersonic “Kinzhal” missile. The Kremlin had boasted that the weapon was unstoppable, even untouchable given its speed and maneuverability.

    “Thanks to our American partners, we can actually touch this missile,” Ruvin told CBS News.

    It now sits, along with the remains of other advanced ballistic missiles, in a growing graveyard of destroyed Russian munitions — evidence for the massive war crimes dossier Ruvin is helping compile.

    He told CBS News that as Ukraine prepares for its looming counteroffensive, Russia appears to be targeting his country’s air defense network, and those attacks have become more frequent.

    kharkiv-strike-iskander.jpg
    An image from video posted online by Gov. Oleh Synehubov of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, May 29, 2023, shows damage to an apartment building from what he said was a Russian “Iskander” hypersonic missile strike that wounded six civilians. 

    Reuters/Handout


    Not all of Russia’s missiles are stopped, and another one of its hypersonic rockets, an “Iskander,” slipped though the net early Monday and hit an apartment building in Kharkiv, according to the region’s governor. Governor Oleh Synehubov said six people, including two children and a pregnant woman, were injured in the strike, and he posted video online of the damaged building.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Russia fires hypersonic missiles in latest Ukraine attack as war in east drives elderly holdouts into a basement

    Russia fires hypersonic missiles in latest Ukraine attack as war in east drives elderly holdouts into a basement

    [ad_1]

    Near Dnipro, southeast Ukraine — Across Ukraine, people were left Friday to pick up the pieces of Russia’s latest blistering coordinated assault, a barrage of missiles the previous day that left at least six people dead and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands more. The attack saw Moscow turn some of its most sophisticated weapons to elude Ukraine’s potent, Western-supplied air defense systems.

    Among the more than 80 missiles unleashed on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure Thursday were six “Kinzhal” [Dagger] hypersonic cruise missiles, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat. The jet-launched rockets are believed to be capable of reaching speeds up to Mach 10 or 12, double the speed of sound (anything over Mach 5 is considered hypersonic).

    Rocket strike kills 5 in Ukraine's Lviv
    People look at the ruins of houses destroyed by a Russian missile that hit a residential area in the village of Velika Vilshanytsia, near Lviv, Ukraine, March 9, 2023. 

    Pavlo Palamarchuk/Anadolu Agency/Getty


    Ukraine has acknowledged that it cannot intercept the missiles, which can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. The Russian military has used them at least once previously during the war, about a year ago.

    Fitted with conventional warheads hypersonic missiles don’t inflict significantly more damage than other, less-sophisticated rockets, but their ability to avoid interception makes them more lethal. It also makes them more valuable resources for Russia’s military to expend, which may be further evidence of long-reported ammunition and missile shortages that Vladimir Putin has asked his allies in Iran, North Korea and even China to remedy.


    U.S. officials say China is considering sending weapon to Russia amid war with Ukraine

    06:58

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said it hit military and industrial targets “as well as the energy facilities that supply them” with its attack on Thursday.

    In his daily video address to the Ukrainian people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was as defiant as ever after the latest assault.

    “No matter how treacherous Russia’s actions are, our state and people will not be in chains,” he said. “Neither missiles nor Russian atrocities will help them.”

    While Russia’s air war has reached far across the country, hitting targets even in the far-western city of Lviv on Thursday, the worst of the suffering has been for Ukrainian civilians in the east, where Russian forces have seized a massive swath of the Donbas region — and where they’re pushing hard to seize more.

    There, Thursday’s assault was met with a mixture of defiance and disgust. 

    “This is horrible,” Vasyl, a resident of hard-hit Kherson said. “I don’t have any other words, other than Russia is a horrid devil.”


    Russia launches more than 80 missiles in fresh strikes on Ukraine

    05:50

    Moscow’s destruction is evident across the small towns and villages of eastern Ukraine, including in Velyka Novosilka. The town right on the edge of Russian-held ground was once home to 5,000 people, but it’s become a ghost town.

    Only about 150 people were still there, and CBS News found them living underground in the basement of a school. It was dark, without electricity or running water, and most of those surviving in the shelter were elderly.

    oleksander-sinkov-ukraine.jpg
    Oleksander Sinkov speaks with CBS News in the basement of a school in the southeast Ukrainian village of Velyka Novosilka, where he took shelter with dozens of other mostly-elderly residents after his home was destroyed early in Russia’s invasion.

    CBS News/Agnes Reau


    Oleksander Sinkov moved in a year ago after his home was destroyed.

    Asked why he didn’t leave to find somewhere safer, he answered with another question: “And go where? I have a small pension and you can’t get far with that.”

    The residents of the school pitch in to help cook and take care of other menial chores as they can, but there’s very little normal about their life in hiding.

    ukraine-school-shelter.jpg
    Inside the basement of a school in the southeast Ukrainian village of Velyka Novosilka, where dozens of mostly-elderly residents are taking shelter from the war outside.

    CBS News/Agnes Reau


    Iryna Babkina was among the youngest people we met in the school. She stayed behind to care for the elderly.

    “They cling to this town,” she said of her older neighbors. “We have people here who left and then came back because they couldn’t leave the only home they’ve ever known.”

    ukraine-school-shelter-dodonbas.jpg
    Iryna Babkina speaks with CBS News in the basement of a school in Velyka Novosilka, southeast Ukraine, where she is sheltering from Russia’s war and helping to look after other residents.

    CBS News/Agnes Reau


    It had been weeks since Russia carried out a coordinated attack across the country like Thursday’s, but in the front-line towns like Velyka Novosilka in the east, the shells fall every day, leaving those left behind to survive, barely, however and wherever they can.

    Imtiaz Tyab


    imtiaz-tyab-promo.jpg

    Imtiaz Tyab is a CBS News correspondent based in London.

    [ad_2]

    Source link