The Pentagon’s secretive research agency says new advances are needed to counter adversary air defenses, along with innovative manufacturing techniques that can produce hypersonic weapons affordably and at scale.
Providing air-breathing and boost-glide hypersonics propulsion requires a holistic approach to address each system’s unique needs for speed.
As operating environments grow more complex, Link 16 provides instantaneous, mission-wide connectivity to ensure no aircraft flies alone.
You can imagine a reusable system that can fly around and drop payloads and come back, or a hypersonic system that can carry other hypersonic systems," said Gillian Bussey, head of DoD's Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.
The goals of the test were "vehicle integration and release sequence, safe separation from the launch aircraft, booster ignition and boost, booster separation and engine ignition, and cruise," DARPA said today, adding that the "primary test objectives were met."
"I'm not satisfied with the pace," Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. "We're making some progress on the technology; I would like to see it be better."
Raytheon Technologies is using our broad capabilities to create breakthrough advantages.
As part of the DoW’s acquisition transformation, streamlined processes must be extended to all companies in the defense industrial base.
SCIFiRE is aimed at maturing an air-breathing hypersonic conventional cruise missile launched from either a fighter or a bomber.
GAO notes that efforts to defend against Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles are much less mature than offensive efforts, with much less funding. Only 12 of 70 projects tracked by GAO related to defenses; DoD requested $207 million in 2021 for hypersonic defense, up from $157 million in 2020.
Combatant Commanders for European Command and Indo-Pacific Command see bombers with hypersonic capabilities as "incredibly, incredibly valuable," says Gen. Timothy Ray.
"How are we going to employ hypersonic weapons, what do they bring to the battlefield?," asks Maj. Gen. Mark Weatherington, commander of the 8th Air Force and the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center.
Predictive artificial intelligence and autonomy will reshape how forces are sustained across the Pacific.
“We want to deliver hypersonics at scale,” said R&D director Mark Lewis, from air-breathing cruise missiles to rocket-boosted gliders that fly through space.
While Army and Navy spending nearly double, Air Force and independent agency spending drops almost 40 percent.
"At this point we don't want to see an either/or -- we actually want to see both technologies pursued," Lewis said of DoD's pursuit of hypersonic boost-glide and cruise missile efforts.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will ramp up research on hypersonic weapons with a stunning 136 percent increase in the 2019 budget request. Here’s the breakdown of the $257 million: DARPA wanted more money, director Steven Walker said bluntly, particularly to build up an R&D infrastructure currently half the size of China’s. But, he said, this budget […]