This is blogspam based on a tweet of the company's promo video[1] in November and some speculation by a guy on Chinese state TV[2]. As far as I can find there's no evidence since then that these have entered production, mass or otherwise. It was doubted at the time they could hit these costs in production, and there hasn't been any news since.

[1] https://xcancel.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1993158707056984359

[2] https://archive.is/VLO7U

▲ jsw97 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. I have no idea if this is technologically plausible at this point but it doesn’t make sense strategically. Why would China allow something this dangerous and IP-intensive to be commercialized? We don’t sell our nuclear weapons tech, for example. (I assume.) And the thought that they would want this in the hands of unstable actors, however they are currently aligned, is a little silly. This feels more like a mistake, possibly even a scam.

▲ whatsupdog 20 hours ago | parent [-]

You underestimate both China's production capability and their desire to destabilize the south Asian region, so they can step in to take control. They have been arming Pakistan to the teeth against India. They even sold them the nuclear weapons tech. They don't care.

	▲	defrost 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Both the US and China sold nuclear power technology to Pakistan, as I recall France also agreed to sell nuclear power tech to Pakistan .. in a deal that fell through because of something (haven't checked history) in France's domestic politics scene(?). All three countries have denied providing nuclear weapons tech to Pakistan - there is credible history to account for both Pakistan and India to have independantly developed enrichment programs and weapons on their own. All things are possible, a plausible explanation for the flurry of accusations against China from 2000 onwards from both the US State Dept. and India was the bald fact that the US, the premier global atomic watchdog, was caught absolutely pants down and blindsided by the events of 1998* ... India detonated a series of nuclear weapons tests and Pakistan responded within 30 days with a slightly longer series ( 5 blasts Vs six in response .. IIRC ) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_d... ** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I U.S. Intelligence and India’s Nuclear Tests: Lessons Learned - https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-672.html `The U.S. Intelligence Community did not have advance knowledge that India intended to conduct nuclear tests beginning on May 11, 1998.`

▲ pseudohadamard 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It sounds like marketing hype. The term "hypersonic" is so vague as to be almost meaningless, for example the V2 was technically a hypersonic missile. Can it usefully maneuver at hypersonic speeds? Can it track a target at hypersonic speeds? Without further evidence I'm going to assume the answer is "no".

Also, as the Iranians have recently demonstrated, the way to get get past someone's defences is to deploy multiple warheads (and a pile of random debris) from a cheap missile, not to bet on exotic hypersonic weapons.

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shalmanese 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> for example the V2 was technically a hypersonic missile.

The V2 was not a hypersonic missile, it was a ballistic missile that had a predetermined flight path that was easy to predict. The distinguishing factor of hypersonic missiles is that they do not require a ballistic trajectory to achieve their speeds (and are hence, much harder to detect) and they maintain maneuverability throughout their entire flight path.

https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2022/m...

> The ancestor of ballistic missiles, Germany’s [...] V-2 was first launched in the 1940s. During ascent, it could reach a speed greater than Mach 5 and could do so again momentarily on its way back down. But, no one would claim that the V-2 was a hypersonic missile. In a similar vein, should one apply this label to modern intercontinental ballistic missiles that reach speeds beyond Mach 20 at ascent and re-entry?

> Certainly not, and there are other characteristics commonly cited when defining ‘hypersonic missiles’. However, while a combination of defining characteristics is increasingly adopted among experts, hypersonic missiles are often not well understood within public discussions in politics and the media [...]. The US-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance states that ‘hypersonic weapons refer to weapons that travel faster than Mach 5 (~3800mph) and have the capability to maneuver during the entire flight.’

	▲	foobarian 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How about don't call stuff that travels faster than sound a "fasterthansoundic missile" if you don't want people to confuse it with all other old stuff that also travels faster than sound!