While available documents did not detail how many ARRW missiles the Air Force intends to buy, the request officially transitions the hypersonic weapon from its troubled development and testing phase and into formal procurement and production. The move comes after the Air Force considered cancelling the program last year after it completed its rapid prototyping effort in August 2024.

Made by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, ARRW is one of the two types of hypersonic weapons the Air Force’s is pursuing — the other being the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), under development by RTX-subsidiary Raytheon.

ARRW is a boost-glide missile that can be launched from larger aircraft such as the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, and like all hypersonics can fly at speeds of Mach 5 or faster and maneuver during flight.

The fate of ARRW has been up in the air since March 2024 when the Air Force announced it didn’t include any funds to procure the missiles in its budget request for fiscal 2025. The decision was not a surprise, as the program faced a series of setbacks during its development phase — including at least one failed all-up-round flight test that occurred in 2023.

At the time, Air Force leadership said they would pause the ARRW program to analyze the data gathered during its flight test campaign, while also shifting focus to the development of HACM.

But news that ARRW was no longer on the chopping block was first hinted at by Gen. David Allvin, the service’s chief of staff, earlier this month during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“I will tell you that we are developing — and you’ll see in the budget submission, assuming it’s what we put forward — two different programs. One is a larger form factor that is more strategic [and] long range that we have already tested several times — it’s called ARRW. The other is HACM,” Allvin told lawmakers June 5.

The Air Force first awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $480 million to design and develop ARRW. Since then, the service has spent roughly $1.4 billion in research-and-development funds on the hypersonic weapon.

As for HACM, the Air Force is requesting $802.8 million in fiscal 2026 to continue the missile’s development, according to budget documents. The service received $466.7 million in FY’25 appropriations, and the increase in funds for this year are likely due to the program entering its flight test phase in the near future.

The Air Force intends to conduct five flight tests for HACM — two less than the service originally planned for — before the program begins rapid fielding efforts in fiscal 2027. The reduction in tests was caused by delays in nailing down the weapon’s hardware design, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. 

Development of hypersonic missiles is considered a top priority for the Defense Department, especially as adversaries continue to advance their own weapons. Overall, the DOD is requesting over $3.9 billion in FY’26 across a number of programs at different stages of development, a defense official told reporters Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon.

Along with the Air Force’s programs, those funds would also contribute to fielding the first operational battery of the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) — also known as Dark Eagle — by the end of FY’25 and continued development of the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system.

The post Air Force revives ARRW hypersonic missile with procurement plans for fiscal 2026 appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office and the Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the highly anticipated test Thursday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, according to the Defense Department. The event marks the first live-fire test for the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) — also known as Dark Eagle — with a battery operations center and transporter erector launcher.

“This test builds on several flight tests in which the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved hypersonic speed at target distances and demonstrates that we can put this capability in the hands of the warfighter,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement.

The event also marked the second successful end-to-end flight test of the AUR in 2024, according to the Pentagon.

The Common Hypersonic Glide Body is a collaboration effort between the Army and the Navy to develop and field a hypersonic missile for each service. The Army intends to integrate the system into ground launchers for Dark Eagle, while the sea service plans to integrate it into a ship-launched hypersonic capability called Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS). 

As adversaries like China and Russia tout their own advancements in hypersonic missiles, the U.S. military has raced to field systems of their own and will soon move into the next phase of development — dubbed “hypersonics 2.0 and 3.0.” The high-speed weapons are able to maneuver through the atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 or greater, making it difficult for enemy air defenses to detect and defeat them.

The successful AUR test for the Common Hypersonic Glide Vehicle comes after a series of prior aborted and failed events that have delayed fielding for both hypersonic weapons. The services previously called off tests due to problems with the system’s launcher, after which the Army and Navy revised their testing plans and schedule. 

Following a successful end-to-end flight test in June, Army acquisition chief Doug Bush told reporters on multiple occasions that the services would conduct one more key AUR test before the end of 2024 in order to decide whether to field the system next year.

The Army has already delivered the first LRHW capability — without the all-up rounds — to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Meanwhile, the Navy is planning to field CPS aboard Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyers and Virginia-class attack submarines in the next few years.

Data collected from the recent test will support plans to deliver the common hypersonic AUR for both ground- and sea-based fielding, according to a Pentagon news release. The Defense Department declined to provide any additional details regarding fielding timelines and expectations for both programs.

“This test marks an important milestone in the development of one of our most advanced weapons systems,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in a statement. “As we approach the first delivery of this capability to our Army partners, we will continue to press forward to integrate Conventional Prompt Strike into our Navy surface and subsurface ships to help ensure we remain the world’s preeminent fighting force.”

Leidos is the prime contractor for the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, while Lockheed Martin serves as the prime contractor for both the Army’s LRHW and the Navy’s CPS.

The post Army, Navy complete highly anticipated hypersonic missile test appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Over the next couple of years, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), the Pentagon’s organization dedicated to developing overarching joint operational and integrating concepts, plans to move into the next phases of hypersonic weapons development known as “hypersonics 2.0 and 3.0,” Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and JROC Chair Adm. Christopher Grady told DefenseScoop.

The effort will focus on analyzing exactly how the technology will contribute to closing future “kill webs” — that is, the multi-layered and multi-directional structure of attack leveraging assets from all domains, Grady said Nov. 9 in an exclusive interview during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the University of Notre Dame’s new hypersonics testing facility.

“It gets back to the kill web. So, where do hypersonics fit into how we are going to fight?” he said. “We know that hypersonics allow us to get after time-critical, heavily defended targets. We know that hypersonics allow us to defeat adversary hypersonics. And then, we also know that hypersonics allow us to leverage hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft missions in those two domains.”

In recent years, the United States has raced to field hypersonic weapons capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5 or higher. In addition to their speed, hypersonics maneuver through the Earth’s atmosphere mid-flight, making them harder to detect and defeat compared to traditional ballistic missiles that have a more predictable flight path through space.

Both China and Russia are actively developing and testing their own hypersonic systems, putting pressure on the Pentagon to do the same. But the technology is extremely complex and individual programs have run into a number of hurdles — particularly during test campaigns — meaning the capability has yet to cross the finish line.

While program management for hypersonic weapons falls to the services, the JROC plays a role in identifying joint capability gaps and then establishing “large R requirements” for the entire Defense Department, Grady noted.

“This is the top-down approach. And so we try to write a really strong requirement that says, ‘This is the value proposition for hypersonics.’ And I think we’ve done a pretty good job,” Grady said. “We do things across capability portfolios now, so this fits into our kill web analysis that [the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office] and the rest run.”

But before the Pentagon can implement those next phases, the services must continue down the path to developing and testing their respective systems. 

The Army is working alongside the Navy to co-develop a common hypersonic glide body, which the Army will integrate into ground launchers for its version — known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) or Dark Eagle — while the sea service plans to use a ship-launched capability called Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS).

Although both services reported a successful end-to-end flight test in June, a series of prior aborted and failed tests have delayed fielding for both weapons by at least a year. The Army is planning to conduct one more flight test for the LRHW by the end of the year to inform whether it can field the complete system to the first unit in 2025. Meanwhile, the Navy is continuing its test campaign for CPS, which it hopes to field aboard Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyers and Virginia-class attack submarines in the next few years.

As for the Air Force, the service decided to not procure or continue development of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) in fiscal 2025 after years of inconsistent testing results. The Air Force is pursuing another air-launched hypersonic weapon — the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) — and plans to begin its flight test campaign in FY ’25.

Broadly, the Defense Department has recognized mishaps during hypersonic flight test campaigns and is working to close those gaps through a number of efforts, including partnerships with academic institutions and international partners that can assist with test efforts.

A key benefit to working with universities on emerging technology development is that many have begun emphasizing both fundamental and applied research, serving as dual-use facilities for the Pentagon, Jeffrey Rhoads, vice president for research and professor at Notre Dame’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, told DefenseScoop.

“I would argue that universities, at least many of us, are stretching across that valley as far as we can,” Rhoads said in an interview. “I think, at the same time, the department and industry are stretching from the other direction to try to de-risk things writ large.”

Another focus is on taking advantage of adaptive buying strategies such as Middle Tier Acquisition — which many hypersonic programs use — to make technology transfer between government research organizations, industry and academic institutions to the Defense Department as quick as possible, Grady said.

He also emphasized the importance of working with Congress on getting flexible funding.

“The ability to move money within line items will be critical of the system that we have now with congressional oversight — that’s entirely appropriate,” Grady said. “We have to earn that trust from Congress and show them that we can do this, and we are embarking on methods to do that across the services and within the department.”

The post Grady: DOD preparing for ‘hypersonics 2.0 and 3.0’ to understand operational concepts appeared first on DefenseScoop.

“We need to get into a faster clip of doing these tests, especially in the new stuff, to be able to really wring out the technology, but also to start beefing up the inventory levels [and] the capacity levels because, frankly, the hypersonics are too costly,” MDA Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said Thursday during an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Development of hypersonic missiles and tools to defeat them, is a top modernization priority in the Defense Department, especially as adversaries like China and Russia mature their own versions of the technology. The weapons are able to reach speeds greater than Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable in-flight, making them difficult for traditional air defense systems to intercept them.

The Air Force, Navy and Army each have ongoing hypersonics programs, and a number of other efforts are in the works at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and other DOD organizations to advance the technology. However, a limited amount of adequate testing infrastructure has hindered overall development, Collins said.

With other programs, “you may launch dozens of dozens of weapons. But on the hypersonic side, we just have not been able to do that,” he said.

Data gathered from the department’s hypersonics tests can also support MDA’s efforts to develop capabilities to counter those types of systems.

Although the Pentagon operates a handful of ranges to test missiles, only one, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, is long enough — over 50,000 feet — to test hypersonic weapons at speeds of Mach 5 or higher.

Another option is to launch the missiles over the open ocean. However, doing so makes recovery of the vehicles for further analysis extremely difficult.

Speaking at a House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing in March, George Rumford, director of the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), told lawmakers that the department is looking to upgrade the 70-plus-years-old track at Holloman, but doing so creates disruptions in missile testing. The Pentagon is also conducting an ongoing study to build additional tracks, he said.

Along with efforts to build more long-range corridors, there are two other major initiatives at the department to bolster the United States’ hypersonic testing capacity, Rumford told lawmakers.

That includes the Navy and TMRC’s Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) program, which aims to prototype a modular flying test body that can validate subsystems and materials prior to integrating them onto platforms. The TMRC is also running the SkyRange program, which retrofits unmanned aerial vehicles so that hypersonic weapons can be tested in more locations.

While infrastructure is one bottleneck to moving forward with the systems, Collins emphasized during the CSIS event that the Pentagon needs to commit to funding its test programs for the weapons.

He said that it isn’t uncommon for programs to cut tests and equipment when funding gets tight, despite having already planned a full testing campaign.

“Off the cuff, I would say many of those ended up having to test more in the long run, but they ended up paying for more test assets later at more cost,” Collins said. “We’ve got to get farther up the cost curve, the efficiency curve by investing in the capacity to be able to do these kinds of weapons.”

There have been several new entrants into the hypersonics industrial base recently, which has helped the department improve its ability to test the missiles, he added.

In the near term, Collins said MDA is looking at how non-traditional defense contractors can provide targets for hypersonic weapons testing at a low cost.

“There is the commercial and venture capital space that are bringing hypersonic capabilities to bear, which is exciting because the costs of targets is an order of magnitude lower,” he said. “If we can get them to the point where they’re delivering capability that meets what we need in that intersection, that is going to be very powerful for us because our targets mean we can test more — and that is going to only help us in the long run.”

The post MDA director on hypersonics testing: ‘We need to get into a faster clip’ appeared first on DefenseScoop.

A critical flight test for the system was slated for Oct. 26 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but it didn’t go forward as planned.

“I can’t go into details, but it was before launch when a problem was detected. So that’s why the test didn’t happen,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told DefenseScoop during a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday.

Bush declined to specify what the problem was, stating that it’s classified and program leaders are still doing root-cause analysis.

“After you have a test failure, you know, you take the thing back, take it apart, and the members of the team work through with the engineers on what exactly the failure was. And we’re doing that of course with the Navy. They are our partners in this program … I think we’re close to understanding what exactly the problem was, which will inform our path to getting back to testing,” he said.

The incident was the latest in a series of hiccups associated with testing the system, which was previously known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).

“It definitely will make it very difficult to achieve our … end-of-the-year goal [for fielding]. Very unlikely we’ll achieve that goal. But at the same time, the capability is still absolutely needed. The Army is still fully committed to it. I think we’ll figure it out,” Bush said.

Hypersonic weapons — which are designed to fly faster than Mach 5, be highly maneuverable and overwhelm enemy air defenses — are a top modernization priority for the Pentagon.

The Army had aimed to field the Dark Eagle before the end of fiscal 2023, which came on Sept. 30. However, a flight test scheduled for September was postponed due to a weapons-related issue, and officials then said they hoped to field the system by the end of the calendar year. Now, it looks like that won’t happen.

“We’ll get the LRHW but it’s going to take more time, unfortunately,” Bush said during the meeting with reporters Tuesday.

The post Army anticipates another delay in fielding Dark Eagle hypersonic weapon after detecting ‘problem’ appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The Army was hoping to field the initial battery of the Dark Eagle missiles, previously known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), before the end of fiscal 2023 on Sept. 30. However, the scrubbing of a test scheduled for earlier this month has led to slippage in the timeline.

A previous test in March also had to be called off due to an issue with the battery activation, officials said at the time. However, the recent postponement was due to an issue with the weapon, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told reporters during a meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday.

“It was weapon-related … it was the system itself. There was a flaw that triggered a ‘don’t shoot’ [message], basically. It’s like if you can imagine a countdown for rocket launch, something flagged in the system and said ‘stop here.’ And that was like two seconds away. So pretty close,” he said.

Bush was asked if the problem was a major glitch that wasn’t anticipated.

“It was not. I wouldn’t say we anticipated it or we fixed it. But I think it’s an example though, when you take a system, for example, you know, take the missile and you put it into what’s going to be an operational launcher — this is where you learn that integration. It might sound simple, but it’s not,” he said.

The event wasn’t expected to be a “full-up” operational test, but something close to it, he suggested.

“A lot of soldiers were involved. We used the real hardware, we used the real software. So unfortunately we had that glitch. But we believe we have a test campaign scheduled for the rest of the year that could still — if it goes well — enable [an] end-of-the-year thumbs up on fielding … to the first battery,” Bush said. “We’ll see. Still gotta have a good test.”

Bush did not disclose when the test is now slated to take place.

Hypersonic weapons are a top modernization priority for the Pentagon as it seeks new quick-strike capabilities. These types of missiles are designed to fly faster than Mach 5, be highly maneuverable and pose a major challenge for adversaries’ air defense systems.

The Army and Navy have been working together on a common hypersonic glide body that could be used for the Army’s ground-launched Dark Eagle and the Navy’s sea-launched Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system. The Air Force is also pursuing air-launched hypersonics.

Having the schedule slip for the Dark Eagle isn’t a huge surprise, Bush said.

Other Army officials have previously said the service was taking on a lot of risk to meet the original goal for fielding.

“This is an equivalent of a Major Defense Acquisition Program. It is extremely complicated. It’s an entirely new missile, new launcher, new fire control,” Bush said. “So, if we stay on our revised testing plan … our goal is now the end of the calendar year to get a fielded system with a test to validate it. I think three months [slippage] in the grand scheme of things is not that big a deal. But that’s for others to judge, especially for a system this complicated.”

The post Delay in fielding of hypersonic weapon ‘not that big a deal,’ Army acquisition chief says appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Hypersonic systems are able to travel faster than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. Their high velocity speed coupled with their ability to maneuver as they fly through the atmosphere make hypersonic missiles much harder to detect and intercept when compared to a traditional ballistic missile that travels a predictable flight path.

These capabilities are a top modernization priority for the Pentagon, and the outcome of the department’s technology efforts will affect how well the U.S. military stacks up against advanced adversaries, such as China and Russia, in the future.

The Pentagon is pursuing multiple types of hypersonic weapons — namely, boost-glide systems and cruise missiles — that have unique characteristics.

‘Think of it in terms of energy’

The Defense Department has spent years and billions of dollars — including roughly $4.5 billion approved in the fiscal 2023 budget — researching and developing hypersonics as the United States tries to catch up with China and Russia’s matured programs. 

Efforts have focused on operationalizing two types of systems: boost-glide missiles and cruise missiles. While the Army and Navy’s efforts have focused on boost-glide capabilities, the Air Force was pursuing air-launched variants of both, as ARRW is a boost-glide system while HACM is an air-breathing cruise missile.

Mark Lewis, who recently served as director of NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute and was recently hired to be CEO of the Purdue Applied Research Institute, said that while it would be ideal to have both types of weapon, it makes sense to prioritize a cruise missile like HACM for tactical missions that the Air Force would conduct.

“If you look at the two, I like to think of it in terms of energy,” said Lewis, who previously served as acting deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and director of defense research and engineering for modernization at the Pentagon.

Boost-glide missiles like ARRW are first launched from a rocket booster that gives it enough energy to reach hypersonic speeds and then glide along the atmosphere without using additional propulsion, whereas cruise missiles are powered by air-breathing jet engines — also called scramjets — that pull in oxygen from the atmosphere to achieve hypersonic flight, he explained.

“In the boost glider, I’m putting all of my energy up front,” Lewis told DefenseScoop. “With the air breather, I’m releasing my energy as I fly through the atmosphere almost continuously. So it’s really about energy management.”

Both types of systems are an incredibly difficult feat of physics to get correct for different reasons, said Joe Jewell, assistant professor at Purdue University’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“The technology to do that boost glide, the main thing you need is you need to deal with the thermal load, you need to accelerate it up to the speed that it’s designed to operate at — and that’s usually done with a separate rocket booster — and then you need to intelligently use that energy you’ve got … and bleed that off in an intelligent way such that you don’t slow down your maneuvering vehicle too much before it reaches its objective,” Jewell told DefenseScoop.

The limitation of boost glide hypersonics like ARRW is that the energy the system gets during the initial thrust of energy from the rocket engine is all it will ever have to achieve high speeds, he said.

But cruise missile hypersonic missiles can add thrust or energy to their flight profile as they maneuver along their flight path, due to the air-breathing engine, he added.

“In an air-breathing engine, you can actually get some of the energy back. Maybe you can accelerate through your flight path,” Jewell said. “It just adds another dimension to how maneuverable, and therefore survivable, the vehicle is at the cost of complexity and expense.”

However, in choosing to move forward with an air-breathing hypersonic weapon over a much more fully developed rocket-launched variant, the Air Force has picked the more complex of the two to develop, he added.

The air moving through a scramjet engine flows at supersonic speeds of at least Mach 1, which makes ignition very challenging, making it more difficult to design the physical vehicle, he explained.

“It’s only designed to work over this limited range of Mach numbers. You have to get to that Mach number before you can even test it, so that’s hard. And then you have to keep it lit,” he said, noting that it’s been compared to “keeping a match lit in a hurricane.”

Lewis noted that the different propulsion methods of the two variants affect what they have to carry. Because a boost-glide hypersonic weapon uses a rocket engine to take off, it needs to carry a liquid oxidizer that can ignite its fuel. An air-breathing hypersonic weapon doesn’t need a liquid oxidizer because it uses oxygen pulled in from the atmosphere.

“If you do things right, all things being equal, the air breather can go further on a tank of gas because the air breather’s tank of gas is just the fuel,” Lewis said. “Whereas the rocket’s tank of gas is the fuel, plus some oxidizer with which to burn the fuel.”

The price tag matters too

The differences between boost glide and air-breathing hypersonic missiles, as well as how the Defense Department prioritizes them, also comes down to cost management, Lewis noted.

“For a boost glider, we basically know how to build rocket engines. … Yeah you’ve got to develop maybe a new booster, but we know how to do that. So you have to invest all the technology in the weapon itself,” he said. “But with the air breather, you’ve got a different set of challenges because you’ve got to figure out how to build the engine … and then it has to integrate exquisitely with the rest of the vehicle.”

Until recently, the Air Force intended to buy both types of hypersonic missiles that could be launched from the service’s aircraft. For fiscal 2024, the service is requesting $381.5 million for research and development of HACM, which is being built by Raytheon. The Air Force also requested around $150 million for R&D of the Lockheed Martin-made ARRW. However, it plans to scrap its procurement plans for ARRW once it completes its planned prototyping program in fiscal 2024.

HACM is “compatible with more of our aircraft and it will give us more combat capability overall,” Secretary of the Air Force Kendall told lawmakers last month while testifying to the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee. 

Lewis agreed, noting that boost-glide hypersonics are generally much larger than air breathers and that it’s very difficult to scale the systems down to fit on an aircraft.

“Because they’re not carrying their oxygen with them, an air breather is packaged batter,” Lewis said. “You can build a hypersonic cruise missile that’s basically in a smaller package than the corresponding tactical boost glider. That means you can get more of them on the airplane, you can get more in the bomb bay, you get a deeper magazine.”

Even though the air-breathing hypersonics are less developed, the belief is that they will be less expensive per round than boost-glide variations, Lewis said. While there are costs associated with research, development and associated technologies of an air-breathing system, it is a much less complex piece of machinery once the vehicle’s design is perfected, he said.

“They’re really just ducts, and you’re squirting fuel in and igniting it and producing thrust that way. So they can be relatively simple devices,” he said. “The devil, of course, is in the details, but advanced manufacturing capabilities — things like additive manufacturing, as just one example — reduce the cost of manufacturing.” 

As the Air Force prioritizes HACM, both the Army and Navy are on the cusp of fielding their own hypersonic weapons — the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS), respectively. Both are boost-glide hypersonic missiles, although the Army’s will be ground-launched and the Navy’s will be fired from destroyers and submarines at sea.

The Army is looking for $901 to fund further development of the LRHW. The service deployed the first platform at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington in March for training and mission rehearsal, and by the end of 2023 plans to have the first battery as part of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force.

Meanwhile, the Navy — which has been working with the Army on a common hypersonic glide body — plans to have CPS integrated into Zumwalt-class destroyers by fiscal 2025.

The Navy is currently asking Congress for $901 million in fiscal 2024 for research, development, test and evaluation of the CPS. The sea service also wants to buy eight initial “all-up rounds” and canisters for the weapon in 2024, with a plan to spend upwards of $50 million per round, on average, over the next five years to procure dozens of the missiles.

Undersectary of Defense for Aquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said the Pentagon needs to do more to lower the price tag of its hypersonic weapons.

“We’re just for the first time as a country getting to production of hypersonics, and not surprisingly the average unit cost is … higher than we want it to be and we need to bring it down,” LaPlante told DefenseScoop at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference last week.

For hypersonics writ large, officials should shoot for a per round price tag of less than $10 million, he suggested.

“I would think an average procurement unit cost of in the single digit millions is where we should aim for it. And we’re actually looking at some that are as low as $3 million an all-up round. That’s where we want to be,” LaPlante said.

“In general, we’re looking at concepts for cruise missiles and we would like to get it under 10 — ideally as low as $3 million,” he added. “I’m not going to name the system [that might be as low as $3 million per round] because it’s still pre-decisional. But the more important point rather than what that system is, is that we want to get that price point down under in the single digits.”

In addition to acquiring CPS for its ships, the Navy is also looking to equip its aircraft carrier-based fighter jets with a Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive (HALO) Anti-Surface weapon, and recently awarded two contracts to Raytheon Missiles and Defense and Lockheed Martin to pursue the technology. The HALO, which despite its name might not actually fly at hypersonic speeds, may be a cruise missile rather than a boost-glide system because of the size constraints associated with carrier air wing operations.

The preferences between each of the services is reflective of their mission requirements, Lewis said. Both the LRHW and CPS are larger weapons that are difficult to scale down to a size that can fit onto an aircraft due to their physics, he said.

“At the large scale I’d say, ‘Hey if I want to build something big and hypersonic, I probably want to go with a rocket-boost glide,’” Lewis said. “But if I want to build something tactical that fits on an airplane, then right now I would argue the air breather is the more mature technology.”

The post Physics and cost are shaping Pentagon’s hypersonics paths appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Known as Sabre, the sensor payloads will be able to collect and disseminate data created during flight tests for ballistic missiles and, eventually, hypersonic missiles.

“This program will demonstrate mission utility of the Sabre mission payload functions and concepts of operation prior to potential incorporation in future Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) Tranches,” according to a solicitation posted on Sam.gov on Thursday.

Data needed to study the performance of high-speed missiles is currently gathered by fleets of aircraft and ships — an expensive and limiting process that can be eliminated if the Sabre payloads prove successful. The SDA also aims to significantly reduce the time it takes to collect and send the information by using the agency’s planned transport layer to gather and transfer data in near-real time. 

The payloads will also have alternative pointing, navigation and timing (PNT) and tactical electronic support capabilities, the solicitation noted.

The solicitation is for the “design, development, fabrication, integration, test, and delivery” of three flight units, as well as operation and sustainment services for up to three years, the request for proposal stated.

The work will also include support for integrating those payloads onto the SDA’s National Defense Space Architecture Experimental Testbed (NExT), according to the solicitation. The collection of low-Earth orbit spacecraft are intended to host experimental space-based capabilities for test and evaluation by the agency.

Ball Aerospace received an Other Transaction prototype agreement last year to develop and operate 10 NExT satellites slated to begin launching in 2024. Three of those 10 will host the Sabre payloads acquired under the new contract, the RFP stated.

The SDA will use an Other Transaction authority to award a firm-fixed-price contract for the three Sabre payloads. The first payload will be launched no earlier than Dec. 1, 2024, according to the solicitation.

Responses to the solicitation are due by April 17.

The RFP comes as the Pentagon is looking to ramp up research and development of its various hypersonic missile programs. U.S. adversaries like China and Russia have already made leaps in developmental progress on these types of weapons — which can fly at speeds of Mach 5 or higher and be highly maneuverable.

Each of the services has at least one hypersonic weapon under development. By the end of fiscal 2023, the Army plans to field its first system known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon. The Navy is developing its own system called Conventional Prompt Strike and is asking Congress for $901 million in funding for research, development, test and evaluation in its budget request for fiscal 2024, according to budget documents.

At the same time, the Air Force has two hypersonic missiles in development — the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) and the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM). Budget documents indicate the service is requesting $150 million from lawmakers to fund ARRW’s research and development in fiscal 2024.

Overall, the Pentagon is requesting $11 billion in its fiscal 2024 budget request for hypersonic weapons and other long-range missiles, according to budget documents.

The post SDA issues solicitation for new space-based sensor payloads to aid missile testing appeared first on DefenseScoop.

The two services are working together on a common hypersonic glide body that could be used for the Army’s ground-launched Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and the Navy’s sea-launched Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system. The Pentagon wants these types of missiles because their speed and maneuverability are expected to pose challenges for enemy air defenses and provide a new quick-strike capability.

“The Army and Navy are also partnered to execute all flight tests in a series of joint flight campaigns to validate the current designs and inform future science and technology efforts,” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the Army’s director for hypersonics, directed energy and space, said in written testimony to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces on Friday.

“The Army and Navy’s hypersonic partnership has allowed each Service to support more aggressive timelines than separate development programs would have in order to quickly deliver hypersonic capabilities. The sharing of critical components drives cost savings for both Services based on economies of scale,” he added.

However, plans for another flight test last weekend had to be scrapped.

“We recently prepared to conduct a hypersonic test on [March 5] from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. And as a result of the pre-flight checks during that event, the test did not occur. We are still in the process of processing and analyzing the data we received at that event,” Rasch told members of the subcommittee during a hearing on Friday.

Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, director of the Navy’s strategic systems programs, indicated that a problem associated with a battery was to blame.

“Automated pre-flight checks identified that a battery did not activate, which resulted in not conducting the test. We are aggressively investigating the cause of the no test and will continue to move forward with our development and additional testing in support of Army fielding as soon as the cause is identified and corrected,” he told lawmakers.

The officials did not provide any additional details about the incident or the system that was expected to be launched.

The Army aims to field its first set of LRHW weapons by the end of this year. It’s not immediately clear how much of a setback the scrapped test will be.

At the annual AUSA convention in October, Rasch was asked whether failures in upcoming tests would result in delayed fielding of the LRHW.

“It depends on what you mean by ‘fail,’” he replied. “There’s learning opportunities in every one of these events. And so I don’t know if I could characterize now and say … ‘if this [anomaly] happens, then it will cause a delay.’ Obviously, we’re moving fast. … If we have an anomaly and we don’t really reach our somewhat stretch goals, we’ll sit down and analyze it and talk amongst the team and manage the risk as we go forward.”

After mentioning the recently scrapped test at the hearing on Friday, he told lawmakers that he’s still “confident, however, in our team, and we will persevere together to get this system capable and safe for fielding to our soldiers.”

The Navy aims to install CPS systems on Zumwalt-class destroyers in 2025. The vessels will have to be modified to accommodate them. It later plans to put the weapons on submarines.

“I remain confident that the CPS program will be ready to field the hypersonic weapon system upon the availability of the Navy platforms,” Wolfe told lawmakers on Friday.

The post Pentagon cancels hypersonic missile test due to battery issue appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Hypersonics are highly sought by the United States and other major powers because they can fly faster than Mach 5, be highly maneuverable against enemy air defenses and quickly attack time-sensitive targets.

The U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy are all pursuing different variants of the systems. Other DOD organizations, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Missile Defense Agency, are also assisting with the technology development.

At DefenseScoop’s DefenseTalks conference in September, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said hypersonics will be “very, very, very powerful” weapons.

The Pentagon moved the ball forward on several programs in 2022 as it aims to begin fielding new systems in the next few years.

HACM

In September, the Air Force awarded Raytheon Missiles and Defense a $985 million contract to develop an air-launched Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM).

Hypersonic cruise missiles use air-breathing scramjet engines for propulsion, whereas the hypersonic boost-glide systems that the Pentagon is also working on use rocket boosters to reach extremely high speeds.

“The task order provides for the HACM weapon system design, development and initial delivery through the performance of model-based critical design review, qualification, integration, manufacturing and testing,” the Defense Department said in the contract award announcement.

Work is expected to be completed by March 2027.

The Air Force wants to prioritize the integration of the weapon with the F-15E fighter jet to facilitate flight tests.

Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have been working on air-breathing scramjet systems for DARPA’s HAWC program. That technology could transition into the HACM program, according to Chris Haynes, Northrop Grumman’s senior director for strategy and business development. A flight test of the companies’ HAWC prototype was conducted last year.

Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne have also provided their own prototype for the HAWC program, which set a scramjet record for endurance during a flight test earlier this year, according to DARPA.

ARRW

The Air Force in December conducted its first successful “all-up-round” flight test of a prototype operational Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). Lockheed Martin has been working on the boost-glide system as part of a rapid prototyping program.

During a Mitchell Institute podcast released in August, Brian Schappacher, Lockheed’s deputy program manager for the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, noted that the project was facing an “extremely aggressive schedule” for development and testing.

The 412th Test Wing based at Edwards Air Force Base conducted the recent all-up-round test off the coast of Southern California.

“A B-52H Stratofortress [bomber] successfully released the first All-Up-Round AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon [ARRW],” according to an Air Force press release. “This test was the first launch of a full prototype operational missile. Previous test events focused on proving the booster performance. Following the ARRW’s separation from the aircraft, it reached hypersonic speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, completed its flight path and detonated in the terminal area. Indications show that all objectives were met.”

The ARRW could be operational as early as fall 2023 and will be considered for rapid production, according to Air Force Global Strike Command.

Mayhem

In December, the Air Force Research Lab announced that it awarded a $334 million IDIQ research-and-development contract to Leidos for AFRL’s Mayhem project.

The program calls for developing a hypersonic platform that can both conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions, according to Leidos.

The air-breathing Mayhem system must be capable of “executing multiple missions with a standardized payload interface, providing a significant technological advancement and future capability,” according to a DOD contract award announcement.

The multi-mission capable is notable because other hypersonic weapons are being designed exclusively for quick-strike operations — not for ISR.

The Mayhem technology is being billed as a more advanced capability than other systems that are in the works.

“Leidos is tasked with designing and developing a large-class version that surpasses current air-breathing systems in range and payload capacity using digital engineering to ensure the design efforts help future development and transition,” Leidos said in a press release.

The initial task order calls for conducting the system requirements review and conceptual design review in a digital engineering environment.

The work under the IDIQ contract is expected to wrap up by October 2028.

LRHW and CPS

The Army and Navy are pursuing a common glide body that is expected to be used for both the ground-launched Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and the sea-launched Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) capability.

In October, the Navy office for Strategic Systems Programs and the Army Hypersonic Project Office successfully conducted the second High Operational Tempo for Hypersonics flight campaign from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, which will inform the development of CPS and LRHW.

“During weapon system development, precision sounding rocket launches fill a critical gap between ground testing and full system flight testing. These launches allow for frequent and regular flight testing opportunities to support rapid maturation of offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies. The data collected from the latest sounding rocket campaign will drive warfighting capability improvements for both Navy and Army to ensure continued battlefield dominance,” according to a press release from the Navy office for Strategic Systems Programs.

It called the test “a vital step in the development of a Navy-designed common hypersonic missile, consisting of a Common Hypersonic Glide Body (CHGB) and booster, which will be fielded by both the Navy and Army with individual weapon systems and launchers tailored for launch from sea or land.”

Leidos’ Dynetics subsidiary has been working on the glide body. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are also involved in the LRHW and CPS efforts as an engine provider and weapons integrator, respectively.

The Army is aiming to field the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon by the end of fiscal 2023, while the Navy plans to begin fielding Conventional Prompt Strike in 2025.

“We’re confident going into this year, [but there’s] a lot of risk. Absolutely,” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, director of hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said in October during a panel at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington. “We’re moving out on a very, very aggressive schedule with our industry partners.”

The Army has already fielded ground support equipment for the LRHW, and soldiers have been training with it.

“We’re now working to finish up the testing and then the actual build out of the all-up round and what we call the all-up round canister munition,” he said.

“We’ll do a couple of more critical live-fire tests this year to characterize not just the hyper glide body, but characterize the two-stage rocket motor, characterize all the ground support equipment, and on path to field at the end of FY23,” Rasch said.

Production and price tags

While the DOD has seen progress in hypersonics in labs and on test ranges, actually transitioning them into production and fielding will be another hurdle.

Aside from some prototyping efforts, “we’ve never, ever produced and manufactured hypersonics ever in this country. It’s been entirely S&T,” LaPlante said at the annual Defense News Conference in September. “So, the real question is … are these companies [that are working on the technology] ready to no-kidding go into production at some degree of rate? And I ask this question, Jon, all the time, and I get reassurance that they’re ready. But the proof will be in the pudding,” he told DefenseScoop at the event.

“I wish I could tell you … that absolutely they’re ready for this. They say they are [and] they will. But if you all know anything about hypersonics … you have very difficult materials issues, thermal management issues, aerodynamics issues,” he added.

LaPlante described the technology as game-changing, noting that adversaries China and Russia are already manufacturing and deploying some of their hypersonic systems.

“If we get — when we get hypersonics into production, we should all pop champagne corks. That will be remarkable because we have never had them in production. Hypersonics has been in the S&T community in this country forever. I love S&T, folks. I am an S&T person. But at some point, you got to let the children out,” he said.

Despite the challenges involved, LaPlante said he’s hopeful that the weapons will be ready for prime time in the not-too-distant future.

“I am actually optimistic. And without getting into specifics … when I visited some of the companies that will do it — I know people there — they know the challenges that they have,” he said. “But … knock on wood, knock on carpet, they’re about one to two years away from production for some of these hypersonic glide vehicles. And if we get there, hallelujah. That’ll be a landmark” for U.S. military modernization.

The DOD has already spent billions of dollars on research, development, test and evaluation for these types of systems. However, the per-unit price tag of the production units will shape how many the Pentagon is able to buy.

“What the hypersonics community is trying to do is shoot towards an all-up round cost that’s reasonable,” LaPlante said at DefenseTalks. “We’re not going to be able to buy very many of them if they’re $80 million all-up rounds. So they’re shooting for somewhere even as low as 10 or 5 million [dollars] a round. And that really is going to drive the numbers.”

The post 2022 in review: Pentagon advances several hypersonics initiatives with contract awards and RDT&E appeared first on DefenseScoop.