US to Develop High-speed Drone with Global Reach

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 03, 2003

US to Develop High-speed Drone with Global Reach

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The Pentagon of the United States is planning a new generation of weapons, including a high-speed drone able to strike anywhere in the world within two hours of leaving a US base, local media reports said Wednesday.

According to the website run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the drone would be a reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle capable of taking off from a conventional military runway.It would be able to fly by remote control at more than five times the speed of sound and deliver six tons of precision-guided bombs or missiles on targets 9,000 miles (14,400 kilometers) away.

The agency is inviting bids from contractors to develop the technology with an aim of having at least an early version of the weapon ready to use by 2010.

The program is code-named FALCON, short for Force Application and Launch from the Continental United States, the report said.

The Falcon technology would "free the US military from relianceon forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively todestabilizing or threatening actions by hostile countries and terrorist organizations," according to the agency's invitation forbids.

Part of the Pentagon's drive toward self-sufficiency was spurred by the difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq, analysts said.

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