Hosted by the White Field Research Laboratory, the 3,000-square-foot lab space is home to a quiet wind tunnel able to simulate hypersonic flight at speeds up to Mach 10 — or 10 times the speed of sound. The Navy served as the funding agency for the tunnel’s fabrication, with Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane acting as the contract monitor, and future operations will be funded through research grants and contracts.

DefenseScoop received an exclusive first look at the new facility, which is designed for both fundamental hypersonic research and programmatic testing for the government and industry. The wind tunnel is expected to help the Pentagon address gaps in hypersonics research, testing and workforce development.

“Hypersonic flight represents unique challenges and opportunities, and these facilities are vital to our test and evaluation efforts, enabling us to stipulate and study the extreme conditions that hypersonic vehicles will encounter,” Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said during the ribbon cutting ceremony at the University of Notre Dame. 

Hypersonic weapons are maneuvering missiles that fly through the atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 or higher, making them difficult for adversary air defense systems to intercept them. Their development has been a top priority for the Defense Department in recent years, especially as adversaries like China and Russia continue to tout their own advancements in high-speed missiles.

Although the Army, Navy and Air Force have ongoing programs to develop hypersonic missiles, the department has struggled to get the capability across the finish line — with several programs experiencing problems during their testing campaigns.

“Anything that is testing, anything that is like training ranges and those kinds of things, they often don’t get the heat and light that other things do. But woe be unto us if we don’t invest in those to make sure that we have the apparatus that underpins everything else,” Grady said in an interview with DefenseScoop.

The Pentagon uses wind tunnels to conduct ground testing and validate system performance. The complex facilities are designed to simulate hypersonic flight at austere speeds and atmospheric conditions, giving researchers insights into aerodynamics, thermal management and structural integrity.

But because the few facilities available to the Pentagon are in high demand, the department is turning to Notre Dame and other academic institutions part of the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics to help close that critical testing gap.

“When we see a university like this or across the entire consortium move into this space, that is really powerful because it adds to that testing ecosystem,” Grady said.

Notre Dame’s new facility is a quiet — or low-disturbance — wind tunnel, meaning it can test hypersonic systems without turbulence, allowing researchers to understand how wind tunnel “noise” impacts performance, Thomas Corke, the university’s Clark Equipment Professor in engineering and director of the university’s Hypersonic Systems Initiative, told DefenseScoop. 

“There are some situations in which the impact of the tunnel noise is not important, which then allows the government facilities to continue on that road,” he said. “So it’s very important — and that was in our thinking — to be able to take the same test articles that would be in a government lab … and be able to put the same article in our facility, and be able to make that contrast.”

There are only a handful of quiet wind tunnels in the United States — including a Mach 6 tunnel and a Mach 8 tunnel, both of which are located at Purdue University, and another Mach 6 tunnel operated by Texas A&M University. While Notre Dame’s new facility adds capacity to the hypersonic testing ecosystem, Corke also noted it will be critical to testing at speeds closer to Mach 10 where there are fundamental changes in aerodynamics that occur.

“Ground testing is important, and ground testing is meant to predict what happens in flight. And so if it doesn’t predict what happens in flight, it’s not doing the role it’s supposed to do,” Corke said.

Along with testing capacity, Notre Dame’s new wind tunnel will also address a gap in the workforce that is challenging the United States’ hypersonic systems development by training people who will carry their skills over to government or industry once they graduate.

“The role of a university like this to inflame passions on the part of young scientists and engineers and technicians, I think, is absolutely critical. But then somebody’s got to build this stuff when we finally figure out what the system is,” Grady said. “And so having a strong focus then on — I don’t call them workers, these are craftsmen and artisans of the highest order — is important if it’s going to work.”

Notre Dame is creating a master’s program in hypersonic systems, with a particular focus on developing pipelines from military academies that allow personnel to pursue an advanced degree, Corke said. The university is also training doctoral students on advanced topics related to hypersonics to ensure there isn’t a future gap in people who can teach future generations of engineers and scientists, he added.

The plans align with Grady’s push for workforce “permeability,” a concept he’s working on alongside Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, he said. The idea is to have people rotate to academia for a few years, and then return to industry or government — where they can receive security clearance — in a continuous cycle.

“We gain because we get all that expertise from academia or industry. I think they gain when they go back, because they understand what we want,” Grady said. “And so that’s the wave of the future in many aspects.”

Updated on Nov. 14, 2024, at 3:15 PM: This story has been updated to note that the wind tunnel is hosted by the White Field Research Laboratory. A previous version stated that it was hosted by the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory.

Updated on Nov. 18, 2024, at 4:40 PM: This story has been updated to note that Texas A&M University has a quiet wind tunnel.

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“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.”

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According to Defense Department budget documents for FY ’25 released Monday, the Air Force has not requested any procurement funding for the Lockheed Martin-made hypersonic missile. Instead, the service will wrap up the final flight test budgeted for the program in fiscal 2024 and then decide ARRW’s fate once all the data from the testing campaign has been analyzed, an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.

“The Air Force remains committed to fully analyzing and understanding all test data gathered while conducting the ARRW Rapid Prototyping test series. This data will inform subsequent development and fielding decisions with ARRW,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Developing hypersonic missiles has been a top priority for the Air Force and other services as U.S. adversaries continue to mature their own technology. The weapons are able to reach speeds of Mach 5 or higher and are highly maneuverable in-flight, making them difficult for air defense systems to intercept them.

In its budget request for fiscal 2024, the Air Force asked for $150 million for ARRW to finish the rapid prototyping program and conduct flight tests of the missile. R&D funding was expected to end in FY ’24, after which the service would revisit the program’s funding for fiscal 2025. 

The lack of funding in FY ’25 wasn’t a total surprise, as Air Force leaders have gone back-and-forth on the hypersonic missile’s fate in the last year. The program suffered a series of setbacks in 2023, including an all-up-round flight test in March 2023 that was deemed a failure by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. The service has held two more flight tests for ARRW — the results of which were not shared publicly — and is planning for one last test before the end of the month.

Although the Air Force has not publicly stated what caused the failures, a recent report from the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation found that a lack of available infrastructure and insufficient means to collect data have impacted the service’s test campaign for ARRW.

“The hypersonic modernization area supports increased lethality for the Joint Force by providing responsive, lethal, and survivable effects from stand-off ranges,” the spokesperson said. “The goal is to enable the industrial base to manufacture affordable hypersonic systems and at the necessary capacity to achieve a decisive advantage on the battlefield.”

In the meantime, the Air Force will continue research and development for its other hypersonic missile program — the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM). Whereas ARRW is a boost-glide system that uses a rocket to reach high speeds, HACM is an air-breathing scramjet weapon.

The service has requested $517 million for HACM’s development in fiscal 2025, according to budget documents. While that is more than the $381.5 million requested by the service in fiscal 2024, last year’s proposal to Congress indicated that the service planned to ask for $557.1 million in R&D funding in FY ’25.

Raytheon has been the prime contractor for HACM since 2022, when it received a $985 million contract from the service for design, development and initial delivery of the missile by March 2027. In January, the company received an additional $407.6 million from the Air Force to conduct concurrent R&D work that will enhance the system.

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Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante hinted at follow-on efforts during an exchange with Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday regarding Defense Department initiatives to expedite the fielding of innovative technologies.

“The Air Force’s ARRW system is the only hypersonic weapon that the DOD has successfully tested so far. And yet the DOD currently has no plans to move the program forward. Why is that?” Banks asked.

“Let’s just say that there is a plan. It’s not something we can talk about in this open session. But we’d like to talk. We’d be happy to come over and brief you in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility where classified information can be viewed and discussed],” LaPlante replied.

Additional funding for ARRW would breathe fresh life into a project that many thought would be coming to an end. The service’s fiscal 2024 budget request included about $150 million for research, development, test and evaluation for the system, but the documents suggested it would wrap up after that.

It’s unclear, based on LaPlante’s comments, if follow-on work for boost-glide systems would fall under the ARRW program or a new program with a different name.

Last year, after a test that was deemed unsuccessful, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the service was more committed to a different weapon known as the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) — an air-breathing system that will use a scramjet engine for propulsion.

ARRW, developed by Lockheed Martin, is a boost-glide missile that uses a rocket motor to reach hypersonic speeds. The Air Force has launched the weapon from a B-52 bomber during testing.

The service had two ARRW tests slated for fiscal 2024, and one of them was conducted in October.

Hypersonic missiles are designed to fly faster than Mach 5, be highly maneuverable and have unpredictable flight paths, which would make it difficult for traditional air defense systems to intercept them. They are a top modernization priority for the Pentagon. The Air Force, Army and Navy are all pursuing different variants.

In December, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Andrew Hunter told DefenseScoop that the service hadn’t closed the door on further pursuit of boost-glide weapons.

“There are different approaches to delivering hypersonic capability. And we have not ruled out any of those approaches for the Air Force in the future,” he said in an interview.

However, Hunter didn’t disclose whether additional funding will be included for ARRW or follow-on work in the next budget submission.

“The rapid prototyping program is continuing [in fiscal 2024]. It’s been accomplishing flight tests, which has definitely been adding to our capabilities in the hypersonic realm. It adds to our understanding of … the capabilities that industry can provide, as it has provided under ARRW. And also adds to our ability to do test of hypersonic capabilities, which is really actually quite a key thing because the nature of hypersonic systems is they create a demand signal for a lot of new test capabilities, which we’ve been able to demonstrate with ARRW. And there will be more testing on ARRW in ’24,” he said.

More information about the fate of the program and other advanced weapons will be revealed when the service releases its fiscal 2025 budget request in the coming weeks.

“We don’t have anything additional to provide at this time,” an Air Force spokesperson told DefenseScoop Thursday in response to questions about LaPlante’s comments and future plans for ARRW.

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Developed by Lockheed Martin, ARRW is a boost-glide missile that uses a rocket motor to reach hypersonic speeds of Mach 5 or higher. Hypersonics are also designed to be highly maneuverable in-flight, making them difficult for adversaries’ air defense systems to intercept them.

ARRW is just one of several hypersonic weapons under development across the Defense Department, and it continues to compete with other services’ programs for access to adequate test and evaluation infrastructure, noted the 2023 annual report of the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), which was publicly released last week.

“The program’s flight test schedule is continually challenged to the limited availability and numbers of hypersonic flight corridors, target areas, and test support assets,” the document stated. “To continue system development efforts, the Air Force has conducted flight tests to date using broad ocean area impacts which limited the amount of data collection for terminal flight and measurement of effects (i.e., lethality evaluation).”

In December 2022, the Air Force began what contractor Lockheed Martin has referred to as an “extremely aggressive” schedule for ARRW’s development and testing — with the goal to move the missile into production by fiscal 2024. That month, the service conducted the first all-up round (AUR) test at Edwards Air Force Base in California by launching live warheads of the missile from a B-52H Stratofortress bomber.

The Air Force noted that the first test was a success, and the DOT&E report indicated that the missile demonstrated all phases of flight successfully. But the new report also adds that the service was unable to collect data measurements of the warhead’s function and effects due to a “technical failure” of the testing range’s sensors.

“Due to these sensor system failures, it is unknown if the glide vehicle and warhead functioned as desired in the final phase of flight,” the document stated. 

The program’s fate came to a head after Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall told lawmakers that ARRW’s second test held in March 2023 was deemed unsuccessful. As a result, he said the service would be more focused on its other hypersonic weapon program known as the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM).

While details about the failed March test have been vague, the new DOT&E report highlights that the missile itself was properly launched from the B-52 and that early data showed successful vehicle flight and warhead detonation. However, “the AUR incurred a failure when the shrouds failed to fully eject properly during booster-glide vehicle separation, as one of two shroud ejector motors appears to have not fired,” the document noted.

Because of that failure, the service was unable to collect data for the glide and terminal phases during the flight test. To avoid future failures, the service added “continuity verification of the ejector motors,” according to the report.

The Air Force has since conducted two more AUR tests of the weapon — one in August 2023 and another in October 2023. The service has not been forthcoming with details on whether or not they were considered successful, instead claiming that they each “acquired valuable, unique data and was intended to further a range of programs such as ARRW and Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile.”

The report indicates initial data from the August test showed that the missile achieved nominal conditions during flight and warhead detonation. No data from the October AUR test, which took place in early fiscal 2024, was provided by the office.

Moving forward, the Air Force has one remaining AUR flight test budgeted for fiscal 2024 — it already conducted one in October — that will impact land targets instead of those located over the ocean. But the report notes that those two tests for this fiscal year may not be enough.

“Given the limited number of planned test events, there is a risk that the test program will not be able to demonstrate the ARRW lethal effects against the required tactical and strategic targets,” it said. It added that due to limited planned flight hours and test assets, it likely won’t be possible to fully assess the missile’s operational suitability during this current testing phase.

DOT&E is recommending that the Air Force submit a final “Operational Demonstration Plan” to the office for approval before it conducts the final two budgeted AUR flight tests, which are scheduled for fiscal 2024. As of press time, the service has not provide an on-the-record response to DefenseScoop’s inquiries on whether the document has been submitted.

The office is also suggesting that the Air Force “verify, validate, and accredit” the modeling and simulation tools that it plans to use to assess ARRW’s lethality and survivability against surface-to-air missile systems and anti-aircraft-artillery batteries, per the report.

Updated on Feb. 6, 2024, at 9:15 AM: A previous version of this story said the Air Force had two remaining AUR tests budgeted for ARRW in fiscal 2024. However, one of the two AUR tests budgeted for this fiscal year has already been conducted. This story has been updated to note that.

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