A Department of Defense hypersonic missile test from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, Dec. 12 sparked questions on social media from unsuspecting locals who witnessed the missile launch.

Ahead of Thursday's hypersonic missile test, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a mysterious four-hour flight restriction for unspecified "space operations” on Thursday afternoon, barring pilots from flying through a narrow zone extending offshore southeast from the Cape from around 11 a.m. through 3 p.m.

But no known rocket launches, like SpaceX's frequent Falcon 9 liftoffs, had been announced for Thursday from the Space Coast.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Space Launch Delta 45 also issued a Thursday rocket-launch advisory for a similar time frame, simply titled "Hazardous Operations."

Here’s a brief description of Thursday’s missile test and what a hypersonic missile is.

Did a missile launch from Florida? What is a Dark Eagle hypersonic missile?

Yes, the Department of Defense conducted a hypersonic missile test from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024.

The nickname that the Army has given to the missile is Dark Eagle. According to a September report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Dark Eagle is a truck-launched system that fires hypersonic missiles that can exceed 3,800 mph — more than five times the speed of sound.

The missiles have a reported range of 1,725 miles and are reportedly developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

Testing these missiles is necessary to understand how the missile’s electronics and materials respond to conditions like high heat, according to the CRS.

The CRS’s explainer for Dark Eagle references a 2023 Congressional Budget Office study that found “Extensive flight testing is necessary to shield hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics, to understand how various materials perform, and predict aerodynamics at sustained temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

The test follows less than a month after Russia launched its new hypersonic ballistic missile into the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. On Wednesday, the day before the Department of Defense’s test in Cape Canaveral, Reuters reported that Russia could launch another Oreshnik in the coming days.

What does a hypersonic missile do?

Hypersonic missiles combine extreme speed and high and precise mobility to create a faster, more accurate weapon.

“The LRHW system provides the Army a strategic attack weapon system to defeat Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities, suppress adversary long-range fires, and engage other high payoff/time critical targets," the CRS’s September explainer says. “The Army is working closely with the Navy in the development of the LRHW.”

What is the difference between a hypersonic missile and a regular missile?

A weapon becomes a hypersonic weapon when it can travel at at least five times the speed of sound. Other than speed, the other component that distinguishes missiles like Dark Eagle from "regular" missiles is high maneuverability.

“After being launched from rocket boosters, these ‘boost-glide’ vehicles reenter the atmosphere and are guided to their target with the ability to undertake evasive maneuvers to overcome defenses,” according to a fact-sheet on hypersonic weapons from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

"They can reach the top of the Earth’s atmosphere and remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are ready to strike, and by then it’s too late to react," the CRS summary said.

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