The U.S. Navy is halting development of a high-tech weapon designed to fire projectiles at up to seven times the speed of sound. The Navy spent more than 10 years developing the weapon, called an electromagnetic railgun. The cannon-like railgun uses electricity instead of chemical substances to fire projectiles. A report released earlier this year by the Congressional Research Service stated that the Navy had been developing the railgun as a firing weapon to support U.S. Marines operations. The report said the development also centered on possible use of the railgun as a missile defense system. The move to cancel railgun development comes as the U.S. Department of Defense turns its attention to the development of hypersonic missiles, The Associated Press reports. Hypersonic is a term that relates to speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, also known as Mach 5. In addition to flying at extremely high speeds, hypersonic weapons are designed to move in ways that make them difficult to find and destroy in flight. The U.S. military has been putting money into the development of hypersonic weapons in recent years in an effort to keep up with hypersonic military programs in China and Russia. Matthew Caris is a defense expert with the private advisory company Avascent Group. He told the AP that “the railgun is, for the moment, dead.” The halt in railgun development, Caris said, suggests that the Navy saw difficulties in implementing the technology. In addition, the Navy likely recognized that hypersonic missiles have higher performing abilities than the railgun, he added.