US Hypersonics - Prompt Global Strike Capability

https://news.usni.org/2018/02/14/pacom-harris-u-s-needs-develop-hypersonic-weapons-criticizes-self-limiting-missile-treaties
 
From Inside Defense

DOD wants more than $400 million in FY-19 for air-launched, hypersonic-strike tech development

The Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are seeking more than $400 million in fiscal year 2019 -- up about 160 percent from the FY-18 request -- to mature "game-changing" technologies for potential aircraft-launched, hypersonic-strike weapons.
 
bobbymike said:
From Inside Defense

DOD wants more than $400 million in FY-19 for air-launched, hypersonic-strike tech development

The Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are seeking more than $400 million in fiscal year 2019 -- up about 160 percent from the FY-18 request -- to mature "game-changing" technologies for potential aircraft-launched, hypersonic-strike weapons.
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I wonder if this is for current programs or new.
 
sferrin said:
bobbymike said:
From Inside Defense

DOD wants more than $400 million in FY-19 for air-launched, hypersonic-strike tech development

The Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are seeking more than $400 million in fiscal year 2019 -- up about 160 percent from the FY-18 request -- to mature "game-changing" technologies for potential aircraft-launched, hypersonic-strike weapons.
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I wonder if this is for current programs or new.
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Also what is your interpretation of "to mature game changing technologies"? Is that like "Hey this works now let's turn it into a working weapon system?"
 
I wonder if this is for current programs or new.
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Details of the USAF efforts are provided in the budget materials I had posted earlier. DARPA efforts are the same two programs, HAWC and TBG.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9802.msg324619.html#msg324619
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9802.msg324734.html#msg324734
 
DOD doubles planned Conventional Prompt Strike funding, hands Navy program in FY-20


The Defense Department is ratcheting up planned funding for the Conventional Prompt Strike program and plans to hand responsibility for the project -- the U.S. military's marquee effort to develop an intermediate-range, non-nuclear hypersonic weapon -- to the Navy beginning in fiscal year 2020.

The Pentagon has allocated $1.9 billion for CPS development in its new five-year plan beginning in FY-19, nearly doubling the total amount allocated for the program in the FY-18 future years defense plan, according to DOD budget documents. These documents reveal a decision to transition funding for the CPS program from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which has managed a national team developing hypersonic boost-glide technologies since 2008, to the Navy.

The Navy initially sought to lead DOD's effort to field prompt strike capability in 2008 before being unseated for a spell a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-Air Force team and then the Army.

The Pentagon's FY-19 budget request a total of $278 million for the CPS program. This includes $263 million in defense-wide research and development accounts to fund the last year the program will be run by the OSD along with $15 million in Navy research and development accounts to facilitate a complete handoff in FY-20.

The Pentagon, which has spent $1.2 billion since 2008 developing Conventional Prompt Strike, plans to increase investments in the program significantly.

The total requested amount reflects an increase of more than 30 percent compared to the FY-19 funding DOD projected it would need for CPS in the FY-18 request. In FY-20, the Navy plans to seek $290 million, a 35 percent increase over FY-18 projections. In FY-21, the program anticipates needing $375 million, a 58 percent hike compared to the FY-18 projection; and in FY-22, the plan is to seek $478 million, a 114 percent above the FY-18 forecast for the same period. In FY-23, the Navy plans to seek $482 million for CPS.

The Pentagon is required this year to report to Congress on "the required level of resources" to field an operational Conventional Prompt Strike capability. The FY-18 National Defense Authorization Act requires the U.S. military to plan for an "early operational" variant of a hypersonic strike weapon by 2022.

The Pentagon does not have a formal acquisition program of record for a hypersonic strike capability but is exploring potential boost-glide hypersonic technologies as part of the CPS research and development effort and is expected to consider options for an acquisition program in FY-20.

The CPS program focuses on demonstrating component and subsystem technology maturity with risk-reduction initiatives that culminate with flight tests. The program funds the design, development, and experimentation of boosters, payload delivery vehicles, non-nuclear warheads, thermal protection systems, guidance systems, test range modernization and mission planning and enabling capabilities, according to the Pentagon's budget.

The move to put the Navy in charge of the Conventional Prompt Strike program comes after the service -- at the behest of OSD -- conducted Flight Experiment-1 last fall, flying a scaled down version of the Army-designed Advanced Hypersonic Weapon from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii to the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

After being lifted by rocket to the edge of the atmosphere, the experimental payload separated from its booster rocket near space and flew a flatter, non-ballistic trajectory, gliding unpowered at speeds of at least Mach 5 to its destination.

DOD officials said the test verified technological advances relevant to a potential future U.S. military hypersonic strike system. That test also advanced U.S. military efforts in the race against China and Russia to develop a long-range, ultra-fast missile. The goal of such a capability is to give the president the option to strike a powerful, non-nuclear blow precisely to a target anywhere in the world within an hour.

In early November, a senior Navy official said the service plans to equip its conventionally armed Ohio-class submarines and Virginia-class attack subs with hypersonic boost-glide weapons, in the event Defense Department leaders elect to acquire such a capability. That made explicit for the first time what many analysts have presumed: that the U.S. military is eyeing a maritime option for Conventional Prompt Strike.

But Pentagon officials have yet to publicly specify a particular naval platform for basing a hypersonic strike capability.

In 2008, Congress quashed a Navy proposal to fund the modification of submarine-launched Trident missiles to carry conventional weapons and perform the prompt strike mission over concern that such systems, when employed, could be misconstrued for nuclear launches. A DARPA project with the Air Force to develop a boost-glide hypersonic weapon stalled out after the Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 project resulted in test flights in 2010 and 2011 that terminated early.

In November 2011, an Army-led project notched the U.S. military's first hypersonic boost-glide success when the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon was launched from Hawaii to Kwajalein. That test, according to DOD, demonstrated the feasibility of a boost-glide end-to-end missile concept capability. It also yielded, according to Pentagon officials, valuable flight, ground, modeling, and simulation data in the areas of aerodynamics, thermal protection systems and navigation, guidance and control.
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"The move to put the Navy in charge of the Conventional Prompt Strike program comes after the service -- at the behest of OSD -- conducted Flight Experiment-1 last fall, flying a scaled down version of the Army-designed Advanced Hypersonic Weapon from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii to the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

After being lifted by rocket to the edge of the atmosphere, the experimental payload separated from its booster rocket near space and flew a flatter, non-ballistic trajectory, gliding unpowered at speeds of at least Mach 5 to its destination."

Now THAT'S interesting. That's about 2600 miles. I wonder how big the launch vehicle was. It said cut down from the US Army AHW, which used a Polaris booster (which is astonishing that there are any still around). Might it be small enough to fit in a Mk57 cell?
 
This was also reported in the past and by many estimates was the longest ranged test of such a system in the world even compared to known Chinese tests.
 
bring_it_on said:
This was also reported in the past and by many estimates was the longest ranged test of such a system in the world even compared to known Chinese tests.
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Huh. Completely missed it when it was reported on this site by Maurader2048. I'd thought the last attempt was the US Army test with the failed booster. IIRC HTV-2 was further and BGRV was much further (and both were much faster).
 
From "Engineering the Space Age: A Rocket Scientist Remembers", by Robert F. Brulle:

The [McDonnell] 122E BGRV started it's glide at a Mach number near 20 and maintained hypersonic flight for 5,000 miles, which takes 45 minutes.
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This was almost exactly 52 years ago (2/26/66).
 
We've come so far in half a century. /sarc Back then they were looking at boost gliders that would do their terminal run in at Mach 10 on the deck. :eek:
 
sferrin said:
Back then they were looking at boost gliders that would do their terminal run in at Mach 10 on the deck. :eek:
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Yes, the so-called Low-Level Run-in concept. "Lightning Bolts" by William Yengst, an Aerospace Corporation engineer, goes into LLRI in some detail.
 
sferrin said:
After being lifted by rocket to the edge of the atmosphere, the experimental payload separated from its booster rocket near space and flew a flatter, non-ballistic trajectory, gliding unpowered at speeds of at least Mach 5 to its destination."
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Sometimes, the way they describe it sounds more like direct injection.
 
The switch to the Navy is almost certainly to bypass INF restrictions.
 
Pentagon budget 2019: Russian, Chinese hypersonics emerge as clear concern

http://www.janes.com/article/78096/pentagon-budget-2019-russian-chinese-hypersonics-emerge-as-clear-concern
 
DrRansom said:
The switch to the Navy is almost certainly to bypass INF restrictions.
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The Army's argument had been that AHW was not substantially ballistic and not self-propelled.
But I think the practical realities of deployment necessitate something ship-based.
 
sferrin said:
Now THAT'S interesting. That's about 2600 miles. I wonder how big the launch vehicle was. It said cut down from the US Army AHW, which used a Polaris booster (which is astonishing that there are any still around). Might it be small enough to fit in a Mk57 cell?
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It was the AHW, scaled down.
The booster was a 3 stage STARS.
 
quellish said:
sferrin said:
Now THAT'S interesting. That's about 2600 miles. I wonder how big the launch vehicle was. It said cut down from the US Army AHW, which used a Polaris booster (which is astonishing that there are any still around). Might it be small enough to fit in a Mk57 cell?
Click to expand...

It was the AHW, scaled down.
The booster was a 3 stage STARS.
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So basically same booster system with a smaller boost glider in the case of the USN effort?

Hmm.

AHW
"The launch was propelled by Polaris A3 first and second stage motors, plus an Orbus 1a third stage motor."

https://www.army-technology.com/projects/advanced-hypersonic-weapon-ahw/


STARS
1st stage: Aerojet General solid-fueled rocket
2nd stage: Hercules X-260 solid-fueled rocket
3rd stage: UTC Orbus 1 solid-fueled rocket; 13.4 kN (3000 lb) for 39 s

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/stars.html

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/stars.htm

https://tbe.com/__documents/Public-View/Final_US_Navy_SSP_FE-1_EA-OEA_2017_08_29_Public_Release.pdf

Page 29.


Another interesting tidbit from that last article is they had a scoring system setup in the target area to monitor accuracy of impact. This seems to suggest this is a lot closer to a weapon than X-51 or X-43 where the landing area was "over there somewhere".
 
sferrin said:
quellish said:
sferrin said:
Now THAT'S interesting. That's about 2600 miles. I wonder how big the launch vehicle was. It said cut down from the US Army AHW, which used a Polaris booster (which is astonishing that there are any still around). Might it be small enough to fit in a Mk57 cell?
Click to expand...

It was the AHW, scaled down.
The booster was a 3 stage STARS.
Click to expand...

So basically same booster system with a smaller boost glider in the case of the USN effort?

Hmm.

AHW
"The launch was propelled by Polaris A3 first and second stage motors, plus an Orbus 1a third stage motor."

https://www.army-technology.com/projects/advanced-hypersonic-weapon-ahw/


STARS
1st stage: Aerojet General solid-fueled rocket
2nd stage: Hercules X-260 solid-fueled rocket
3rd stage: UTC Orbus 1 solid-fueled rocket; 13.4 kN (3000 lb) for 39 s

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/stars.html

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/stars.htm

https://tbe.com/__documents/Public-View/Final_US_Navy_SSP_FE-1_EA-OEA_2017_08_29_Public_Release.pdf

Page 29.


Another interesting tidbit from that last article is they had a scoring system setup in the target area to monitor accuracy of impact. This seems to suggest this is a lot closer to a weapon than X-51 or X-43 where the landing area was "over there somewhere".
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Seems like really good news and great results for a near future weapon system. I still think a big flat deck LHA with about 200 VLS sized for a strike missile would be awesome :D

With this ranged missile you could park off NK coast and strike anywhere inland in 20 minutes.
 
bobbymike said:
Seems like really good news and great results for a near future weapon system. I still think a big flat deck LHA with about 200 VLS sized for a strike missile would be awesome :D

With this ranged missile you could park off NK coast and strike anywhere inland in 20 minutes.
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You're also suddenly a huge-ass target in that scenario, Bobby. Better to distribute across multiple platforms, especially undersea ones.
 
They need to get it small enough so they can fit at least 3 to a D-5 tube. Right now it would be one-for-one, or trading away 7 Tomahawks in the case of the SSGNs.
 
George Allegrezza said:
bobbymike said:
Seems like really good news and great results for a near future weapon system. I still think a big flat deck LHA with about 200 VLS sized for a strike missile would be awesome :D

With this ranged missile you could park off NK coast and strike anywhere inland in 20 minutes.
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You're also suddenly a huge-ass target in that scenario, Bobby. Better to distribute across multiple platforms, especially undersea ones.
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I agree in a major power conflict China or Russia could threaten this asset but who else? Parked 1500 mikes off the coast of NK is an area too big for them to threaten this asset. I think the same would go for Iran.

But I do agree undersea would be overall the best platform to carry maybe 72 (24X3 per sferrin) and be hard to detect able to move closer to shore and dramatically reduce flight time.
 
http://aviationweek.com/future-aerospace/high-speed-weapons-and-autonomy-boosted-2019-darpa-budget-request

OpFires will leverage the ongoing DARPA/U.S. Air Force Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program to demonstrate an unpowered hypersonic weapon that can be air-launched from existing platforms.

Lockheed Martin is under contract to conduct the first TBG flight test in fiscal 2019, but the new budget increases funding to $139 million, from $37.6 million in 2018, adds a second contractor and begins development of a variant of the weapon for vertical launch from U.S. Navy warships.

The DARPA/Air Force Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) air-launched cruise missile also is scheduled to enter flight-testing in fiscal 2019, with both Lockheed and Raytheon under contract to develop demonstrator vehicles.

Funding requested for HAWC by DARPA decreases in 2019, to $14.3 million, but this reflects an increase in Air Force funding, budget documents note. The hydrocarbon-fueled, scramjet-powered missile is a successor to the X-51A hypersonic engine demonstrator flown in 2010-13.
 
...
 

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U.S. Hypersonic Weapons ‘Coming’ As Putin Touts Russia’s Lead

As Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed video of the country’s Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic strike missile in his March 1 state of the union address, Darpa’s director confirmed the U.S. will flight test operational prototypes of a similar weapon in ...
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http://m.aviationweek.com/defense/us-hypersonic-weapons-coming-putin-touts-russia-s-lead
 
The latest Russian speech really showcases the glacial pace of US development. Of course DARPA is going to talk about the new US systems, which will be fielded 5 - 6 years from now.
 
DARPA's primary role is not to field systems but to transition technology to the services. The agency gets a tiny portion of the National Defense spending so cannot be expected to do all of the hard work. It is the services that are tasked with making sure that there capability matches that of the demand signal they are getting from their respective combatant commanders. Yes, the last 18 years of near constant counter-insurgency and an obnoxious amount of resources spent on it has led to a lot of hard choices being made as far as R&D and S&T is concerned, while the adversaries have not had to concentrate so much of their own resources on this problem. Does the US have some sort of classified prompt strike capability? I would tend to say yes..but DARPA's hypersonic programs are finally getting adequate funding and this has been further enhanced with the FY19 budget deal. The tribal and hyper-partisan politics in Washington DC has led to the BCA and umpteen CRs which doesn't help either (and this will only get worst). Regardless, DARPA is pushing through and will begin flight testing its systems in about a year. It would then be up to the Air Force, Army and the Navy to see what they can do with them, and at least with the Air Force there seems to be some urgency which started with the FY18 budget where they first requested a fairly aggressive and rapid timeline for fielding a hypersonic weapon with the HCSW.
 
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2018/March%202018/DARPA-Chief-Says-National-Hypersonics-Effort-Needed.aspx?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=

There’s a 136 percent increase in funding for hypersonics research in DARPA’s Fiscal 2019 budget request over FY’18, but this is simply a “good first step” toward what is really needed—a national effort, said DARPA chief Steven Walker.

In a meeting with defense reporters Thursday in Washington, D.C., Walker acknowledged the “substantial” increase in hypersonics research money, and said he has been promoting a National Hypersonics Initiative with the Pentagon for a year.

“Last spring, DARPA, in its role as ‘truth-teller’ to national leadership, went to Deputy [Defense] Secretary Bob Work, and … laid out where we thought the US was in hypersonics” in comparison to “peer competitors” and argued for a “very comprehensive initiative,” Walker said. Both DARPA and the individual services all got a funding boost in the area, and while, “I don’t think we got everything we wanted, … it was a good first step.”

He declined to characterize how far ahead China and/or Russia may be in hypersonics—at least five times the speed of sound—but Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Paul Selva acknowledged in January that China is substantially ahead in the field, having made it a “national program” funded at up to hundreds of billions of dollars. Work, too, has flatly acknowledged China’s lead in recent months.
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DrRansom said:
The latest Russian speech really showcases the glacial pace of US development.
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Worse, it's self-inflicted.
 
From Air Warfare Symposium Flightglobal's Steve Trimble

USAF hypersonic weapon
 

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Just another "might-have-been" to make you cry. :'(
 
That design, IIRC, was a Mach 3 turbojet cruise missile. Which was cancelled a decade ago with no further interest from the USN or USAF.
 
DrRansom said:
That design, IIRC, was a Mach 3 turbojet cruise missile. Which was cancelled a decade ago with no further interest from the USN or USAF.
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It was RATTLRS. And I'd never heard, "nobody was interested" but that wouldn't surprise me in the least given the chronic shortsightedness of the US military over the past 20 years.
 
To clarify: I don't have evidence that the USAF/USN dropped interest in RATTLRS, but the two services dropped the RATTLRS program without any complaint and nobody has mentioned it since.

I suspect RATTLRS wasn't transformational enough, so it got shelved for something more exotic (LRASM-B). What I wonder is why the model is back up. Perhaps the services are desperate for something faster than a Tomahawk, so the company sees a chance to resurrect RATTLRS, a stop gap that could have been had a decade ago.
 
DrRansom said:
To clarify: I don't have evidence that the USAF/USN dropped interest in RATTLRS, but the two services dropped the RATTLRS program without any complaint and nobody has mentioned it since.

I suspect RATTLRS wasn't transformational enough, so it got shelved for something more exotic (LRASM-B).
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LRASM-B was actually a step back from RATTLRS. RATTLRS promised LRASM-B like performance with much more range.
 
sferrin said:
LRASM-B was actually a step back from RATTLRS. RATTLRS promised LRASM-B like performance with much more range.
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I thought RATTLRS was a turboramjet with Mach 3 performance, with a engine derived from the SR-71. That'd give it much larger range than ASALM, which was IIRC Mach 4.5 ramjet.
 
DrRansom said:
sferrin said:
LRASM-B was actually a step back from RATTLRS. RATTLRS promised LRASM-B like performance with much more range.
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I thought RATTLRS was a turboramjet with Mach 3 performance, with a engine derived from the SR-71. That'd give it much larger range than ASALM, which was IIRC Mach 4.5 ramjet.
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RATTLRS had a non-afterburning turbojet. And the engine had nothing to do with the SR-71 or it's engines. ASALM was supposed to reach Mach 4 (the shorter PTV reached Mach 5.4) but LRASM-B was longer than ASALM.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=7OF7Q4auJas

RAND hypersonic proliferation
 
marauder2048 said:
DOD flies experimental hypersonic payload; claims success, technological advances

Jason Sherman

The Pentagon successfully demonstrated a hypersonic glide vehicle Oct. 30, lofting an experimental payload on a rocket from Hawaii that -- during its ultra-fast,
unpowered flight to the Marshall Islands across the upper reaches of the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean -- verified technological advances relevant to a potential
future U.S. military hypersonic strike system. The event -- dubbed Flight Experiment-1 -- was a high-stakes assessment three years in the making by the Defense
Department's Conventional Prompt Strike program and...

https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/dod-flies-experimental-hypersonic-payload-claims-success-technological-advances
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Complete Article - https://www.scribd.com/document/373233297/DOD-Flies-Experimental-Hypersonic-Payload
 

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