David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, said that Iran had likely used medium-range ballistic missiles in its strike on Israel, though he questioned whether Iran had launched a new, hypersonic missile in the attack.
Medium-range ballistic missiles launched from Iran would enter the atmosphere and then leave it “at [a] very high speed” above Israel, and it appeared the barrage had “some success in overwhelming local Israeli missile defences”, Des Roches told Al Jazeera.
According to Iranian state media, Iran used its new Fatah hypersonic ballistic missiles for the first time in the strike
Des Roches, however, said he did not think it was “a true hypersonic missile”. Such a missile has to reach a speed in excess of Mach 5 [hypersonic speed] and must be manoeuvrable, he said.
“Right now China, Iran and Russia all claim to have hypersonic missiles. But I don’t think any of them truly are because the surfaces, when you manoeuvre at that speed, they just burn up,” he said.
“They were certainly going very fast. They are certainly not to be discounted,” he added.
