Boeing delivers first batch of 30,000-pound bombs to Air Force

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator — the Air Force has ordered 20 from Boeing — is nearly five tons heavier than any other bomb in the military's arsenal and is made to pulverize underground targets.

An artist's rendering of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb. (Boeing Co. / July 15, 2009)

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By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times

8:59 p.m. EST, November 16, 2011

THE Pentagon has successfully tested a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour.
Launched by rocket from Hawaii, the “Advanced Hypersonic Weapon,” or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific “at hypersonic speed” before hitting its target in Kwajalein on the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.
Kwajalein is about 4000km southwest of Hawaii.
The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is maneureable.
It comes as the US Air Force also took delivery of America’s heaviest non-nuclear bomb on order from Boeing.
At 30,000 pounds (13,607kg) the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” is nearly five US tonnes (4535kg) bigger than the heaviest in its arsenal and designed to destroy targets deep underground.
For the flying bomb, scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 – or five times the speed of sound – 6000km/h.
The test aimed to gather data on “aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies,” said Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
The US Army’s AHW project is part of “Prompt Global Strike” program which seeks to give the US military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.
On August 11, the Pentagon test flew another hypersonic glider dubbed HTV-2, which is capable of flying 27,000 km/h per hour, but it was a failure.
The AHW’s range is less than that of the HTV-2, the Congressional Research Service said in a report, without providing specifics.
The Pentagon has invested $US240 million in the Global Strike program this year.

Source.