« The U.S. Air Force is at least researching what it might take to develop a nuclear-armed hypersonic boost-glide vehicle with a range equivalent to a traditional intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. This vehicle could potentially go on top of the service’s future Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent ICBMs, which are now in development. Publicly, the hypersonic weapons programs now in progress across the U.S. military are all conventionally-armed.

Aviation Week was first to report on this potential nuclear hypersonic weapon effort on Aug. 18, 2020, based on information the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center had included in a request for information posted online six days earlier. That document, which was marked “For Official Use Only” and has since been taken offline, outlined seven potential upgrade tracks for an ICBM with a “modular open architecture.” «

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At present, all other hypersonic weapons of this type that the US military is developing are conventionally armed.