AFRL - HSSW (High Speed Strike Weapon)

[sferrin]

Raytheon Boost Glide Hypersonic missile concept

Unless its being drastically distorted in that view it doesn't lend itself to, well, anything. Too big to fit in a VLS. Too big for internal carriage in meaningful numbers. That's one area where the Russians really one-upped the US over the years. We'd have these ginormous wings on things like Regulus II, Talos, Hound Dog, and such where they folded their's up nice and neat for tube lauch or carriage in a bomb bay.

 

[Void]

The L/D would be impressive though.

Assuming that picture is actually related to the real product...

 

[sferrin]

The L/D would be impressive though.

Assuming that picture is actually related to the real product...

I guess they could stack them. Three under a shroud.

 

[bobbymike]

The L/D would be impressive though.

Assuming that picture is actually related to the real product...

I guess they could stack them. Three under a shroud.

That's why I've said a all solid Antares II 152" diameter with ~20k lbs payload would be a nice CPGS missile carry a bunch of these.

 

[DrRansom]

The Raytheon design shape is distorted, just like HTV-2. The geometry layouts are completely incompatible from optimized hypersonic waverider shapes.

Interesting that Lockheed really doesn't want to show if its design is a waverider and the inlet geometry.

I am confused about the Raytheon trailing edge, almost as if they want the shape to be stealthy? Or is it a control design.

 

[marauder2048]

Raytheon Boost Glide Hypersonic missile concept

Unless its being drastically distorted in that view it doesn't lend itself to, well, anything. Too big to fit in a VLS. Too big for internal carriage in meaningful numbers. That's one area where the Russians really one-upped the US over the years. We'd have these ginormous wings on things like Regulus II, Talos, Hound Dog, and such where they folded their's up nice and neat for tube lauch or carriage in a bomb bay.

The TBG program "will also consider traceability to, and ideally compatibility, with the Navy Vertical Launch System (VLS)." Quite which VLS isn't stated.

 

[bring_it_on]

https://www.scribd.com/doc/305669978/Hypersonic-Hustle-Global-Efforts-Stepped-up-to-Satisfy-Military-Need-for-Speed?secret_password=yiiSWk23zPF0MWDyepQK

 

[marauder2048]

DOD Contracts for Sep. 19, 2016 (DARPA):

The Lockheed Martin Corp., Palmdale, California, has been awarded a $147,329,859 cost-sharing, other transaction for prototype agreement for a research project under the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program. Fiscal 2016 research and development funds in the amount of $13,426,410 are being obligated at the time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-16-9-0008).

 

[marauder2048]

DOD Contracts for Sep. 23, 2016 (DARPA)

The Lockheed Martin Corp., Palmdale, California, has been awarded a $171,191,252 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a research project under the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program. Fiscal 2015 ($12,163,224) and 2016 ($7,193,252) research and development funds totaling $19,356,476 are being obligated at the time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-16-C-0110).

 

[sferrin]

DOD Contracts for Sep. 23, 2016 (DARPA)

The Lockheed Martin Corp., Palmdale, California, has been awarded a $171,191,252 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a research project under the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program. Fiscal 2015 ($12,163,224) and 2016 ($7,193,252) research and development funds totaling $19,356,476 are being obligated at the time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-16-C-0110).

Do they say what's entailed? Are they actually flying anything?

 

[marauder2048]

I was under the impression that a flight demo is 2 years out.

 

[NeilChapman]

DOD Contracts for Sep. 23, 2016 (DARPA)

The Lockheed Martin Corp., Palmdale, California, has been awarded a $171,191,252 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a research project under the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program. Fiscal 2015 ($12,163,224) and 2016 ($7,193,252) research and development funds totaling $19,356,476 are being obligated at the time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-16-C-0110).

Do they say what's entailed? Are they actually flying anything?

This article is from March. Perhaps this is the award they were looking for and there will be a demonstrator. Article also references the TBG progress for which there was another award today.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/2016/03/16/lockheeds-marilyn-hewson-touts-breakthroughs-hypersonic-weapons/81836070/


"
Lockheed’s secretive Skunkworks arms is working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to mature technologies for HAWC, a joint DARPA-US Air Force effort, according to Skunkworks executive vice president Rob Weiss. Lockheed’s HAWC uses a booster to get up to altitude and then fires a “scramjet” engine that funnels in oxygen from the outside air to reach upwards of Mach 5, Weiss said March 15.

Lockheed will submit a proposal later this month, and expects a contract award in the middle of the year, Weiss said. A demonstrator aircraft will fly in the 2018 timeframe, he said.

Lockheed, along with Raytheon, also recently won a contract for the initial phase of the Tactical Boost Glide, another joint DARPA-Air Force program. The TBG is boosted up to high altitudes and speeds over Mach 5, and then glides to its target, Weiss explained.

“We actually feel that we’ve made substantial progress in all the technologies associated with hypersonics,” Weiss said. “There’s a number of challenges in the technologies, the propulsion, the materials that have to deal with the high temperatures, and we’re at a point now where those technologies are mature, and therefore we feel very confident that we can field and successfully fly a hypersonic vehicle.”
"

 

[bring_it_on]

Flight tests for both the DARPA hypersonic programs are expected in the 2018-2021 period.

 

[bobbymike]

Flight tests for both the DARPA hypersonic programs are expected in the 2018-2021 period.

Going through the Aviation Week Archive can be both enlightening and disheartening. So many articles about hypersonics and when the systems will fly and the article is dated 2002 and sometimes earlier. This statement precludes things I have read on this forum that go back much further than that.

It seems to me, and correct me if I am wrong, if there had been an actual long term planned approach to hypersonic flight and we should be seeing multiple platforms being tested multiple times per year. Is it all budgetary, what?

Seems like another 'strategically important' technology we let slip away from our advantage to where we see ourselves behind our adversaries.

 

[sferrin]

Exactly my gripe. So many reinvented wheels. Imagine trying to get a PhD if you only took 3 courses every 5 years, and each time two of those courses were repeats because you forgot everything you learned last time around. "Whoa, I only got a C on that one, better quit for another 5 years. I'll do better next time."

 

[bring_it_on]

Some coverage on Hypersonics here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZopFn4bkQ

 

[marauder2048]

Air Force Research Lab award ($390,717) to Boeing on Sep 30, 2016 for:

"Directed Energy Threat to a Hypersonic Cruise Missile"

 

[marauder2048]

DOD Contracts Oct. 31, 2016

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a $174,746,702 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a research project under the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program. Fiscal 2016 research and development funds in the amount of $3,410,005 are being obligated at the time of award. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-17-C-0025).

 

[bring_it_on]

View: https://twitter.com/AFResearchLab/status/1353795466652168194

Congratulations to the AFRL High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) Team for being selected as the AFMC nominee for the 2021 Air Force Association Theodore Von Karman Award! The team will be representing
@HQ_AFMC
at the next level of competition! #AFResearchLab #AFMC