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.

The post Air Force not planning to buy any ARRW hypersonic missiles in fiscal 2025 appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Raytheon received an $81 million contract to work on the More Opportunities with the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, or MoHAWC, the Pentagon announced Saturday. The new effort is a successor to the HAWC program — a joint initiative between DARPA and the Air Force to develop and demonstrate an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile — that wrapped up in January with its final successful flight test.

The follow-on effort aims to continue development, integration and demonstration of technologies to prove the effectiveness and efficiency of air-launched hypersonic cruise missiles, Salvatore Buccellato, DARPA program manager, told DefenseScoop in an email.

“These technologies include advancing hydrocarbon scramjet-powered propulsion operation, upgrading aircraft integration algorithms, and improving manufacturing approaches,” Buccellato wrote.

Under the new contract, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman will build and fly additional HAWC flight vehicles, applying data and lessons learned during the original program to mature the weapon’s design, a company press release said. The team will add manufacturing improvements to the original vehicle’s design and flight tests to “expand its operating envelope while validating system performance models,” the release added.

DARPA’s budget request for fiscal 2024 includes $30 million for MoHAWC. The program’s estimated deadline is January 2026, according to the contract announcement.

MoHAWC is one of the many hypersonic weapons programs currently underway within the Pentagon. Able to travel at speeds of Mach 5 or greater through the atmosphere and maneuver mid-flight, hypersonic missiles are much harder to detect and intercept when compared to conventional ballistic missiles that fly predictable flight paths.

Raytheon served as a prime contractor for DARPA’s original HAWC program and conducted several flight tests of a missile propelled by a Northrop Grumman air-breathing propulsion system. Also called a scramjet, air-breathing engines achieve hypersonic flight by pulling oxygen in from the atmosphere.

“We applied learnings from each successful HAWC flight test to ensure that it is the most sophisticated system of its kind,” Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology for Raytheon, said Monday in a statement. “Continuing this important program will expand our knowledge of hypersonic flight and allow us to deliver the critical capability our warfighters need.”

Lockheed Martin also worked on the HAWC program, partnering with Aerojet Rocketdyne. However, Buccellato confirmed to DefenseScoop that Raytheon will be the only performer on the follow-on MoHAWC effort. 

While HAWC was a joint effort with the Air Force, MoHAWC will bring in both the Air Force and the Navy for collaboration “to meet future technology insertion dates for service programs of record,” Buccellato noted.

The Air Force has two different hypersonic programs: the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) and the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM). After ARRW failed an all-up-round prototype test in March, the service decided to scrap its procurement plans for the weapon and instead focus on the more successful HACM.

Raytheon is also the prime contractor for HACM and received a $985 million contract from the Air Force in September. Like HAWC, the weapon is a cruise missile — which the service has had a bit more success with compared to boost-glide hypersonics such as ARRW. The airframe and engine designs of HAWC are very close to HACM’s, meaning that program will also directly benefit from MoHAWC’s advancements, according to Raytheon.

The Navy, however, has focused its hypersonic development efforts on Conventional Prompt Strike — a sea-launched weapon to be installed on Zumwalt-class destroyers in fiscal 2025 and Virginia-class submarines in fiscal 2028. The sea service is also pursuing the Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive Anti-Surface (HALO) weapon, although Navy program managers have indicated the weapon might not actually reach hypersonic speeds.

The post DARPA taps Raytheon for next phase of air-breathing hypersonic program appeared first on DefenseScoop.