Current US hypersonic weapons projects. (General)


interesting! new hypersonic weapons' are no gimmick. that said I agree with something they said in that paper that hypersonics are misunderstood in a way. we have had hypersonic weapons for awhile. we have had maneuvering reentry packages in development for decades. many tactical and strategic missiles have been developed to follow non ballistic trajectories for a long while. the term hypersonics is a bit misleading I think.

anyways I surely hope we dont take a weak or avoiding stance towards the new hypersonic weapons our enemies are developing, and I surely hope we done underestimate the capabilities of our enemies. Russia and especially China are extremely powerful and sadly in the last decade or two we have faltered in many areas as we turned into a global police and peacekeeping force.
 
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Is this image of the LRHW accurate in terms of relative dimensions?

Because it comes up a lot shorter than would be expected for the range its required to provide.

Length is ~ 7m if diameter is 0.88m
Screenshot_20210212-133740~2.png

Also,

Screenshot_20210212-134406~2.png

Or is it missing a stage in each of these?
 
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Isn’t it very similar to the Polaris A3? 34 ft long could carry 3 nukes 4600km. With the single glide body probably lighter payload range would increase accordingly.

 
Polaris was a lot wider and would have had a dramatically greater volume of fuel. That said, I can't speak knowledgably to the range or length of CPS. Where did the second image come from that seems to depict a full up round being test fired? I've definitely never seen it before.
 
Polaris was a lot wider and would have had a dramatically greater volume of fuel. That said, I can't speak knowledgably to the range or length of CPS. Where did the second image come from that seems to depict a full up round being test fired? I've definitely never seen it before.

Which "second image" are you referring to? :confused:
 
View attachment 650552

Or is it missing a stage in each of these?

This image. I've not seen it before; not sure what is depicted.
My bad.
Its been plastered across all articles about LRHW test launch from last year.

The image is originally from 2011 AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon) test.
It flew 3700 km.
The warhead (HGB) it carried is identical to the one proposed for IRCPS and LRHW.
 
LRHW / CPS AUR has not yet flown in its operational configuration. Those flights, IIRC, are expected to happen this year (I believe this summer) and into next year (or it could be next year) starting with the Navy and then the Army. What is the range it is "expected to provide"? Has an official range been shared by either the Navy or Army? In general terms, they've described the current flight experiments as "more than 2,000 nm" but I don't remember seeing specific threshold and objective range figures for the CPS/LRHW.
 
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View attachment 650552

Or is it missing a stage in each of these?

This image. I've not seen it before; not sure what is depicted.
My bad.
Its been plastered across all articles about LRHW test launch from last year.

The image is originally from 2011 AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon) test.
It flew 3700 km.
The warhead (HGB) it carried is identical to the one proposed for IRCPS and LRHW.

Thanks, I was wondering if the image was recent and represented the first AUP or not. I had thought the AHW used some flavor of an old Polaris missile, but perhaps I’m swapping the tests in my mind. CPS looks like it will be a smaller booster than the one uses in the 2017 test.
 
Did they ever state that the 2000+ nm AHW test was a max range shot for that booster and BGV combo?
 
34.5" diameter is closer to Pershing....
Though I'd expect the silo to be larger.
 
View attachment 650552

Or is it missing a stage in each of these?

This image. I've not seen it before; not sure what is depicted.
My bad.
Its been plastered across all articles about LRHW test launch from last year.

The image is originally from 2011 AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon) test.
It flew 3700 km.
The warhead (HGB) it carried is identical to the one proposed for IRCPS and LRHW.

Thanks, I was wondering if the image was recent and represented the first AUP or not. I had thought the AHW used some flavor of an old Polaris missile, but perhaps I’m swapping the tests in my mind. CPS looks like it will be a smaller booster than the one uses in the 2017 test.
The same was also used for March 2020 test.
c-hgb-top.jpg

Can someone identify this rocket stack's dimensions? It is said to be dual stage.
 
 
Can someone identify this rocket stack's dimensions? It is said to be dual stage.
Looks similar to a certain SDI era experimental rocket. Likely not related though.
It was. STARS boosters were used for missile defense experiments.

 
Since they also put Rocketdyne and the X-33 in the mix... I was dreaming of an aerospike.
 
Wow... So a turbo-ram-scramjet.



There are existing ramjet missile designs that bumped their range up and speed to reach mach 5 so mach 5.01 can fit the over mach 5 claim so I wouldn't say ram-scramjet for now.
 
Wow... So a turbo-ram-scramjet.
There are existing ramjet missile designs that bumped their range up and speed to reach mach 5 so mach 5.01 can fit the over mach 5 claim so I wouldn't say ram-scramjet for now.

I'm calling it 'scram'jet only because it says
'dual mode ramjet capable of supersonic combustion'.

Hell, putting ramjet and turbojet into the same package was pretty revolutionary for the size of a missile (YJ102R).
Adding a mode that can then shift to a third mode of combustion(supersonic flow) within the same chamber is kind of hard.
 
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Funny the idea of bringing to life a modern J58. Shows you how ahead of its time the original engine was.
J58 was a ramjet wrapped around a turbojet. Advanced for its time, but the advances in metallurgy and design over the decades mean a lot more can be extracted from the same form factor.

Back in 2009, YJ102R reportedly had 6x specific impulse of the J58. Thats a lot more range and thrust if it was implemented on a larger scale.

However, adding a supersonic combustion mode is a whole different ball game, and will probably provide stupendous performance.
 

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