New missile could begin production next year

UPGRADE: The hypersonic missiles would allow Taiwan to strike targets deeper into China, significantly enhancing the nation’s deterrence capabilities, an official said By Lo Tien-pin and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer Add TT as Preferred Source Taiwan has completed the design of a hypersonic cruise missile that would be ready for mass production by next year at the earliest, a senior official said on Saturday.The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (NCIST) has finished work on the Ching Tien (擎天) missile — formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰) II — a two-stage design that uses a solid-fuel rocket to gain altitude before switching to a ramjet engine to accelerate to hypersonic speeds, a high-ranking official familiar with the nation’s defense research and dev