US-Japan missile development project to cost over $3 billion

A US Defence Department official has said that the US and Japan estimated the total cost of jointly developing a new type of missile capable of intercepting hypersonic weapons will exceed $3 billion.

Of the total, Japan will allocate $1 billion to the Glide Phase Interceptor project, according to the official from the US Missile Defense Agency. The two countries are aiming to complete the missile's development by the 2030s, according to Kyodo News.

The joint development was agreed on by President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in August last year ahead of a trilateral summit with their South Korean counterpart at Camp David near Washington.

The project comes at a time when China, North Korea and Russia have been aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities.

Hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles fly at speeds of over Mach 5, equivalent to five times the speed of sound. They are also maneuverable and can change course during flight, making them more difficult to shoot down or track by radar.

It is the second time that Japan and the United States have decided to develop an interceptor missile together following the Standard Missile-3 Block 2A.

The new project is aimed at knocking down incoming hypersonic missiles during their most vulnerable glide phase of flight before reentering the atmosphere from space, compared with a conventional defense system that is designed to intercept missiles shortly before reaching their targets.