Russian Cold War hypersonic missile sold

Auction Team Breker has just sold a Russian Cold War hypersonic missile at an online auction on November 6. This concerned one of the four remaining Kholod test missiles, which Western countries called the HFL (Hypersonic Flying Laboratory), which clearly reflected the nature of these missiles.

An unknown European company has purchased a Russian Kholod hypersonic test missile

Finally, the Russian hypersonic missile was sold to an anonymous European company for 27,700 euros. It is a remnant of the Soviet Union that collapsed in 1991 and thus left behind a series of engineering projects that were canceled with the end of the Cold War. One of them was the Kholod hypersonic missile, which made its first flight a month before the collapse of the USSR. A total of nine were built and five were destroyed in flight. The one up for auction was an example of that used in static ground tests.

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The purpose of the development of this weapon was to develop a projectile powered by a scramjet, i.e. a jet engine with a supersonic combustion chamber. This one is able to travel five times faster than sound, but before that could happen, the Kholod had to be propelled to a sufficiently high speed. Therefore, it was mounted on the bow of the SA-5 anti-aircraft missile with four engines that would accelerate the Kholod to Mach 3 speed and then separate from the SA-5 first stage.

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Then the screamjet engine still with the SA-5 first stage would enter the game, which would raise the missile to a height of 35 km and accelerate to a maximum speed of 6.47 Mach. During the development stage, the missile was unguided, although it contained a number of telemetry instruments.