Current US hypersonic weapons projects. (General)

US engine maker GE Aerospace says it has achieved a significant breakthrough in efforts to develop a reusable engine capable of powering ultra-fast hypersonic flight.

GE Aerospace on 14 December revealed that scientists at its Global Research Center in Upstate New York successfully tested a dual-mode ramjet (DMRJ) engine subscale demonstrator that uses a novel technique called rotating detonation combustion (RDC).
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www.flightglobal.com

GE Aerospace achieves breakthrough in hypersonic engine development

Using a subscale demonstrator, jet turbine manufacturer GE Aerospace successfully ignited a dual-mode ramjet engine using rotating detonation combustion - a technique the company says holds promise for powering crewed hypersonic vehicles.
www.flightglobal.com www.flightglobal.com
 
indicisivedivide said:
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110% must be about the booster. Can't be anything else. US hypersonic research is so weird that the scramjets function but the SRMs don't.
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My read from the comment is that it was directed generally at the whole program. He mentioned specifically “operationalizing” the progress from HAWC, so my guess is that his concerns are more in regard to guidance and terminal effects than the proven propulsion stack.
 
Josh_TN said:
My read from the comment is that it was directed generally at the whole program. He mentioned specifically “operationalizing” the progress from HAWC, so my guess is that his concerns are more in regard to guidance and terminal effects than the proven propulsion stack.
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This can also be true. These guidance systems are in my opinion the hardest problem in hypersonic. Communication is so difficult at such temperature and speed.
 
This proposal seeks to study, engineer, and prototype a modified SUU-67/A Pylon with MIL-STD-1760 aircraft interface. AFGSC is developing a new conventional High Speed, Air-breathing cruise missile capable of range >1000 miles. Such a missile carried by the B-52 will likely exceded the capacity of the existing conventional weapons pylon and Heavy Stores Adapter Beam (HSAB). AFGSC is exploring other means of missile carriage on the B-52. One option is repurposing the existing SUU-67/A Aircraft Pylon for conventional use. The SUU-67/A is currently used to carry the AGM-86/B Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM). Without this effort to repourpose the SUU-67/A, AFGSC will likely have diminished carriage cabability to carry cruise missiles on the B-52. Potential andversaries and conflicts in the Pacific region will need dozens of cruise missiles in mass attacks against hostile forces. The B-52 carries eight missiles internal and twelve missiles on external underwing pylons, each pylon carries six missiles. Without a capable external pylon, B-52 carraige is diminished 60%.
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SUU-67/A Pylon Modification for Advanced Weapons | SBIR.gov

www.sbir.gov www.sbir.gov
 
They should simply rebuild the entire center fuselage section. That would be way more simple. They should have the flight data to dimension any increase inplayoad or resizing of the bomb bay. Just reworking the launcher isn't the right thing to do at this stage. Especially with a rotary one.
 
TomcatViP said:
They should simply rebuild the entire center fuselage section. That would be way more simple.
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While that would cost some money in building new jigs and tooling (The originals were no doubt scrapped and recycled in the early 1960s after production of the B-52H was completed), Boeing has the necessary engineering drawings and no doubt could take advantage of the massive improvements in manufacturing technology in the 62 years since production ended. It would no doubt add years to the B-52's fatigue-life especially iff they decided to manufacture new wings too.
 
TomcatViP said:
They should not shy on this endeavor. It's plain straight through engineering work.
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It wouldn't be too hard at all to build new B-52 airframes at all just a matter of money and I have no doubt that Boeing has digitised all of the B-52 blueprints onto Catia. Assuming the cutup hulks of the B-52Gs (Aside from those reserved for display in museums) at the Boneyard haven't been recycled they could be dismantled and rebuilt into new aircraft.
 
From what I read of the request, this is an attempt to modify the external pylon that handles the AGM-86 such that it can handle conventional PGMs. I assume this means that this pylon is separate from the heavy stores adapter beam that is used for JDAM and AGM-158. If so, the issue seems to be that they have/want a cruise missile in the 3000lb weight class and that the existing pylon for conventional MIL 1760 wired ordnance cannot accommodate stores that heavy, while the SUU-67/A is capable of the weapon weights required but only wired for nuclear delivery of AGM-86. At least that is my interpretation of the request. In any case, it seems to have zero to do with the bomb bay - I believe the same rotary launcher is used for both PGMs and AGM-86s internally.
 
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The interesting thing to me is that they mention they have a conventional high speed missile with a range of >1000 miles. My first thought was that this was HACM, but if so, that is a much larger range than I would have thought possible. X-51 and HAWC achieved ranges in the ~300 mi/500km range, and for X-51 only about 2/3 of that was powered. Is there any other know project that fits that description? LRSO is nuclear only; no known AGM158 variant is that long ranged (and it seems unlikely that subsonic is “high speed” in the context of a missile). Is there any other high speed cruise missile candidate besides HACM?
 
There was an early released map with launch and splash down site. I put the distance (directly reading it through coordinates) at over/around 1000Nm ;)

It should be somewhere in this thread.

Regarding pylons adaptation, I stand corrected. Thank you.
 
bring_it_on said:
That's why it was posted in this thread.
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I wonder if they are talking about some other project? We know the X-51 was very fuel efficient, getting about a kilometer per pound of fuel in a ~1500 lb glider and 270lbs of JP-7. But it’s hard to see that scaling up to a thousand miles and still being something an F-15 could deploy in combat or that a B-52 could carry six of on a pylon. The HACW combustors are said to be half the weight of X-51, which would have a lot of knock on effects of efficiency throughout the envelope as well as allowing for greater fuel fraction. The glider itself likely isn’t as large as X-51 to begin with. But a thousand miles is practically an order of magnitude greater range. Is seems more likely this is some hyperbole on the part of the SBIR authors, or that instead a black program is being referenced. There is at least 1-2 hypersonic programs we don’t even have a name for that had their acronyms posted temporarily; I think one of them was “HCCW”*.

EDIT: looking back on an old article, HACM and HCCW were the two suspected hypersonic programs (appeared on someone's resume or something like that) that we didn't have information on back when HAWC was the main/only known air breathing effort. HACM is pretty well documented now. So there might be one more program that we've caught wind of but have no information on.

EDIT 2: One last edit, this post from way back covered two classified hypersonic programs on top of the seven known programs, one of which seems likely to be HACM but one of which is unaccounted for:

 
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Defence Updates has just put out a video about concerning GE Aerospace's successful test of an RDE engine:


General Electric Aerospace has successfully showcased a groundbreaking demonstration of a hypersonic dual-mode ramjet (DMRJ) rig, incorporating rotating detonation combustion (RDC) technology within a supersonic flow stream. This test, believed to be a world-first, has the potential to facilitate high-speed, long-range flights with enhanced efficiency.
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The experiment took place at the Research Center in Niskayuna, New York, where the company is actively advancing a wide-ranging portfolio of technology initiatives aimed at advancing and expanding hypersonic capabilities which includes the development of high-temperature materials and high-temperature electronics.
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This effort is also supported by DARPA, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Missile Defense Agency.
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In this video, Defense Updates analyzes how GE Aerospace's hypersonic dual-mode ramjet could give a big boost to the US military?
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It seems likely the USAF is maintaining two separate air breathing programs - one simpler and shorter ranged (HACM) and another black project that needs much more development but is longer ranged with a more benign launch envelope.

HACM seems like it might take the basic engineering of the X-51 and repackage it on a smaller, easier to produce platform to weaponize. We don't have any details of what the HAWC program's propulsion stack looked like, but the assumption is generally that it was boosted to its supersonic flow ignition speed by external rocket motor and is a straight scramjet (as opposed to dual mode ram/scram). This means the external booster has to get the cruiser to near hypersonic speeds all by itself. If HAWC/HACM retain the waverider wedge shaped combustion chamber of X-51, then an integral booster isn't feasible either. As such, I've long wondered if HACM would successfully translate to a strategic bomber. It would require a very large booster for launch at level flight and medium altitude, or alternatively require the launch platform to climb to a very high release point. A bomber might not be able to carry a combat load to sufficient height such that a direct boost to mach 4 at 50-70,000 feet was possible. HACM might require higher speed, altitude, or launch angle than a B-52 could manage. If HACM was just the quick and dirty way to get a lower cost hypersonic weapon with a more simple operating principle out the door, the USAF might accept the limitation of launching from high performance fighters only.

Alternatively, HACM might simply lack the range the USAF wants for unescorted strategic bombers. So far the HAWC distances we have seen are 300mi/500km+ (and it was not specified if they were powered through this entire distance), which is decent but lower than JASSM-ER by a pretty wide margin. USAF may want a follow on supersonic/hypersonic weapon with with very long stand off ranges. The fact that the SBIR mentions 1000+ miles and high speed seems to imply that there is another program with some kind of dual mode engine that could cruise at relatively high speed, and that perhaps it might accelerate to hypersonic in the end game to complicate interception. The SBIR specifically mentions "conventional" and "cruise" in the description of the weapon it is trying to accommodate*; perhaps this is what "CC" in HCCW stands for?

The GE engine development may be unrelated, but a compact RPD engine capable of relatively low mach ignition, highly fuel efficient cruise, and an ability to accelerate to hypersonic speeds in a contested area would certainly be on the USAF's wish list.


*the fact that the SBIR even includes this language, when it is not relevant to the request (they could have just said an extra heavy store for the sake of providing the use case) seems to be someone in the USAF leaving a very deliberate bread crumb trail.
 
Josh_TN said:
The SBIR specifically mentions "conventional" and "cruise" in the description of the weapon it is trying to accommodate*; perhaps this is what "CC" in HCCW stands for?
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My money is on the word "conventional" meaning "conventional weapon" warhead.

Get hypersonic cruise missiles working first.

Then figure out how to make a nuke fit inside and not freak out from the heat.
 
Scott Kenny said:
My money is on the word "conventional" meaning "conventional weapon" warhead.

Get hypersonic cruise missiles working first.

Then figure out how to make a nuke fit inside and not freak out from the heat.
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I definitely took "conventional" to mean non nuclear. I doubt the US is going to adopt hypersonics as nuclear delivery systems any time soon. In addition to the technical problems of a physicals package and PAL system in a hypersonic body, the US already has the LRSO project to fulfill its strategic air launched requirements.
 
The Missile Defense Agency confirmed that a national security space mission that had been projected to launch in December 2023 is being delayed until the second quarter of 2024 due to technical issues with one of the spacecraft.
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MDA’s national security mission, designated USSF-124, includes six satellites designed to track hypersonic missiles. Four of the satellites are missile-tracking sensors made by L3Harris for the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer constellation. The other two satellites — one made by L3Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman — are part of MDA’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program.
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MDA did not disclose which of the two HBTSS payloads is having technical issues. A source close to SDA said “any delay at this point is not related to the L3Harris” Tracking Layer satellites.
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Some lawmakers have suggested SDA, which was established in 2019 to rapidly develop and launch next-generation space capabilities, should take over the mission entirely from MDA. Others argue MDA needs to retain that authority due to its decades of experience tracking ballistic missiles.
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spacenews.com

Pentagon agencies team up in upcoming launch of hypersonic tracking satellites

Pentagon agencies team up in upcoming launch of hypersonic tracking satellites
spacenews.com spacenews.com
 
Josh_TN said:
The training canisters had markings indicating a launch weight of 16,300 lbs (20,500 full, 4200 spent). A US Army statement indicated a range of 1750 miles, though that obviously is a gray area - absolute range would probably be when the entire glider fell out of controlled flight, which I would guess would not happen until subsonic speeds. So "range" probably is related to how fast you want the projectile to be moving over the target or even more likely was chosen to include Taiwan from Guam but not extend to the China for political reasons.
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No your thinking of LRHW at 1750 miles...
"Dark Eagle"/Operational-Fires, formerly known as ARRW/AGM 183. The TBG vehicle itself is still being used for the Medium Ranged Tactical Hypersonic Weapon slot called "Operational Fires" which falls ~1000mi Range, and is fired from an Marine HIMARS like truck with 3 rounds... OpFires_ET1_Launch_image0-1.jpeg
 
TeourdBeourglaer said:
No your thinking of LRHW at 1750 miles...
"Dark Eagle"/Operational-Fires, formerly known as ARRW/AGM 183. The TBG vehicle itself is still being used for the Medium Ranged Tactical Hypersonic Weapon slot called "Operational Fires" which falls ~1000mi Range, and is fired from an Marine HIMARS like truck with 3 rounds..
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AGM-183 is air-launched?
 
TeourdBeourglaer said:
No your thinking of LRHW at 1750 miles...
"Dark Eagle"/Operational-Fires, formerly known as ARRW/AGM 183. The TBG vehicle itself is still being used for the Medium Ranged Tactical Hypersonic Weapon slot called "Operational Fires" which falls ~1000mi Range, and is fired from an Marine HIMARS like truck with 3 rounds...View attachment 715145
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You seem to be confusing multiple systems. Dark Eagle is the U.S. Army’s LRHW, which shares tge same all up round as the USN IRCPS. Both use the SWERVE based biconic glider and are surface launched. The AGM-183 is the USAF weapon that uses the glider from DARPAs Tactical Boost Glide program. We don’t know its range either, though it is rumored to be ~1000mi. It seems unlikely it will enter production. OPFIRES is another DARPA project primarily focused on a throttling solid rocket motor. It is not a weapon development program. The project uses a pallerized platform which can be mounted by the pallet handling trucks of the U.S. Army or USMC (eg HEMMT M1120). It is not related to Himars.
 
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Josh_TN said:
You seem to be confusing multiple systems. Dark Eagle is the U.S. Army’s LRHW, which shares tge same all up round as the USN IRCPS. Both use the SWERVE based biconic glider and are surface launched. The AGM-183 is the USAF weapon that uses the glider from DARPAs Tactical Boost Glide program. We don’t know its range either, though it is rumored to be ~1000mi. It seems unlikely it will enter production. OPFIRES is another DARPA project primarily focused on a throttling solid rocket motor. It is not a weapon development program. The project uses a pallerized platform which can be mounted by the pallet handling trucks of the U.S. Army or USMC (eg HEMMT M1120). It is not related to Himars.
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SWERVE-based? Wasn't SWERVE the Pershing II MaRV?
 
Forest Green said:
SWERVE-based? Wasn't SWERVE the Pershing II MaRV?
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SWERVE is an acronym of Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment. As the pdf @bobbymike attached states, SWERVE was the predecessor for AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon) and CHGB that was designed in the late 70s and early 80s and was test flown in the mid 80s. SWERVE was a carbon structure and was not weaponized after the test flights.

The Pershing II MaRV was of a similar timeframe to SWERVE, but was an aluminum structure covered in ablative material. The Pershing II MaRV was only marginally hypersonic and had only limited cross range capabilities.
 

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