Japan and the US intend to agree on joint development within 10 years of a new anti-missile designed to intercept hypersonic weapons being developed or in service with Russia, China and North Korea, Report informs referring to the Yomiuri newspaper.
An agreement can be reached at bilateral talks between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden, which will be held on August 18 in the US on the occasion of a trilateral summit with the participation of South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol.
Japan has a two-tier missile defense system. Ships equipped with Aegis systems are armed with SM-3 interceptor missiles, which are supposed to shoot down a ballistic missile in the middle stage of the trajectory. If this fails, a second level of missile defense will be activated using Patriot PAC-3 systems capable of intercepting the missile at the final stage of its flight. New versions of the Patriot PAC-3 are capable of attacking hypersonic warheads before they fall on the target, but their range is limited due to ground-based.