Air Force Secretary takes dim view of ARRW hypersonic missile after latest unsuccessful test
Staff Sgt. Jacob Puente, 912th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, helps line up the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon Instrumented Measurement Vehicle 2 as it is loaded under the wing of a B-52H Stratofortress at Edwards Air Force Base, California, Aug. 6, 2020. (Air Force photo by Giancarlo Casem)
Updated 6:18 pm ET 3/28/2023 with comment from Lockheed Martin.
WASHINGTON — The latest test of an Air Force hypersonic missile was “not a success,” the service’s top civilian acknowledged today, while suggesting the Air Force isn’t overly confident the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) has much of a high-flying future.
“The one we just had was not a success. We did not get the data that we needed,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee during testimony on the service’s fiscal 2024 budget request. Kendall was referring to a Friday press release from the Air Force that stated only that the missile achieved “several” objectives but conspicuously omitted any claims of success.
Kendall, who said further tests may finally determine ARRW’s fate, went on to say that the Air Force’s other key hypersonic effort, the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), showed more promise for its “reasonably successful” development and ability to integrate with a greater number of aircraft.
“We see a definite role for the HACM concept. It’s compatible with more of our aircraft. And it’ll give us more combat capability overall. So, we’re more committed to HACM at this point in time than we are to ARRW,” he said.
The most recent stumble for the ARRW program comes after the missile’s first (and successful) all-up-round evaluation in December, but which only proceeded after an early series of failures. Officials continued to express skepticism about buying the missile in the FY24 budget request, where the service requested $150 million to continue its development but once again punted on procurement to allow more all-up-round — or fully assembled — tests to play out.
According to Air Force budget documents, the service is requesting $380 million to continue development of HACM in FY24, with funding set to peak at $557 million the following fiscal year.
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Lawmakers will need to sign off on funding for the ARRW’s R&D to continue, and some such as subcommittee chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., seemed to express reservations about funding a missile the Air Force isn’t publicly lauding. “I don’t like to call it [research and development] welfare, but it seems to go on forever,” he said.
Built by Lockheed Martin, the ARRW is planned to be launched by bombers to accelerate toward its mark at speeds greater than Mach 5, a capability the Air Force was eyeing to quickly strike critical targets from a range of at least 575 miles, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“Lockheed Martin is committed to developing hypersonic technology on an accelerated timeline to meet this critical national security need,” the company said in a statement to Breaking Defense.
Two more all-up-round tests are still slotted for the program, which Kendall made clear would be make-or-break.
“We have two more test articles that we can use,” he said. “We’ll probably have to make a decision on the fate of ARRW after we complete the analysis and hopefully do those two tests. We’ll revisit it, I think, as we build the [FY]25 budget to see what will be done in the future.”