Current US hypersonic weapons projects. (General)

Flyaway said:
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
dark sidius said:
I m a lot like Sferrin I have more and more doubt about the mystery of a lot of program , zero evidence for a lot like the SR-72, RQ-180 etc.... since decade of mystery existence of this programs I have the real feeling that it don't exist. The only concrete since decade is a NGAD flying demonstrator.
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The RQ-180 I am more convinced exists especially since that picture was released a while back,
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Link?
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Do you not look at this forum it was all over the RQ-180 thread at the beginning of last month?
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I don't recall anything that resembled a picture of an actual article. Could have missed it obviously.
 
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
dark sidius said:
I m a lot like Sferrin I have more and more doubt about the mystery of a lot of program , zero evidence for a lot like the SR-72, RQ-180 etc.... since decade of mystery existence of this programs I have the real feeling that it don't exist. The only concrete since decade is a NGAD flying demonstrator.
Click to expand...
The RQ-180 I am more convinced exists especially since that picture was released a while back,
Click to expand...

Link?
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Do you not look at this forum it was all over the RQ-180 thread at the beginning of last month?
Click to expand...
I don't recall anything that resembled a picture of an actual article. Could have missed it obviously.
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Possible Photo Of Highly Secret RQ-180 Aircraft Surfaces Online | Aviation Week Network

At the time the picture was taken in daylight hours, the unknown aircraft was flying above California City in a racetrack pattern at an estimated altitude of 20,000 ft.
aviationweek.com aviationweek.com
And before you ask I am not convinced by the arguments that it’s a P-175.
 
Misread your statement. Sounded like you were saying a picture was released that officially identified an RQ-180.
 
There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes & the US legislature & DOD are fully on board with mass producing every variant possible as a means of deterrence in the Western Pacific, rest assured.
 
I have high hopes for the HAWC demonstrators. Those seem to be less expensive, smaller platforms compared to AGM-183 (which also hopefully is flight tested soon) and one USAF general was quoted as saying "14-20" weapons could be carried by a B-52.

www.defensenews.com

Two hypersonic weapons complete new developmental milestone

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have completed captive carry tests of two Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept variants.
www.defensenews.com www.defensenews.com
 
In_A_Dream said:
There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes & the US legislature & DOD are fully on board with mass producing every variant possible as a means of deterrence in the Western Pacific, rest assured.
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For now. We'll see what happens going forward.
 
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Bhurki said:
There's no intersection of funds (atleast not on paper) approved for NRO and actual air force. Thats why there's clearly defined boundaries for blue/non-blue components.
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The Air Force contributes funds to NRO. This has been the case since NRO's inception. There are unclassified documents out there that break down the "classified programs" spending by program. Those documents include information that makes it possible to identify the largest of those RDTE programs (by $) as NRO. A determined and methodical individual can find those documents and reconstruct large portions of the "black budget".

I am not going to publish those documents here as they will likely appear on The Drive within a few days along with clickbaity speculation about secret Laser Cats programs. And that would shut down the official, unclassified source of this information. This has happened before.

IIRC service contributions to NRO were also described in some of the IC budget documents leaked around the time of the Snowden leaks.
 
quellish said:
I am not going to publish those documents here as they will likely appear on The Drive within a few days along with clickbaity speculation about secret Laser Cats programs. And that would shut down the official, unclassified source of this information. This has happened before.
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It's happened with a few of the links provided on this website in the past, a publication discussing Project: Isinglass was a notable one.
 
Instead of gimballing your nozzle, laser can do the trick. Rich melange (burst) with directed laser energy will increase exhaust velocity assymmetrically leading to a perpendicular exhaust vector component ;)

And here is the laser cat (read above)
 

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I got a laser site for my pistol just to play with my cat. It's like thing is trying to die!
 
www.lockheedmartin.com

Hypersonics Testing by the Numbers: 6 for 6

The extreme environmental conditions while traveling at high speeds and at altitudes above 50,000 feet offer a unique challenge. On Oct. 23, Oct. 29 and Dec. 10 an Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) instrumented measurement vehicle (IMV) was flown captive-carry on a B-52H out of Edwards...
www.lockheedmartin.com www.lockheedmartin.com
 
Annoying. I've been eagerly awaiting both HAWC tests and the AGM-183 test. I assume at this point none of the above will happen until 2021.
 
sferrin said:
Same or different? Or different but for same application?

Air Force Reveals Tests Of Supposed Record-Setting Scramjet Engine From Northrop Grumman (thedrive.com)

"The engine ran for a total of 30 minutes across an unspecified number of tests, generating up to 13,000 pounds of thrust under conditions the engine would experience at speeds of above Mach 4. "

From August 2019.
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Different. Seems that both Orbital-ATK and Aerojet were funded for this program. O-ATK did the prior demonstration and Aerojet did the most recent one.
 
Little different information

Another Aerojet Rocketdyne Hypersonic Engine Makes History

Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have achieved record levels of thrust by a scramjet engine 10 years after making history by powe
www.asdnews.com www.asdnews.com
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Tests were conducted across a range of Mach numbers demonstrating performance to accelerate a vehicle approximately 10 times the size of the X-51, at hypersonic speeds.
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Ten times X-51 is this close to “fighter size”?
 
@bobbymike : If X-51 vehicule (without booster) is around 3m, then we have here a 30m (100ft) aircraft.
Not too bad to cram all the engines and fuel needed for a manned Hypersonic cruiser.
 
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bobbymike said:
Little different information

Another Aerojet Rocketdyne Hypersonic Engine Makes History

Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have achieved record levels of thrust by a scramjet engine 10 years after making history by powe
www.asdnews.com www.asdnews.com
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Tests were conducted across a range of Mach numbers demonstrating performance to accelerate a vehicle approximately 10 times the size of the X-51, at hypersonic speeds.
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Ten times X-51 is this close to “fighter size”?
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Ten times the weight might be a different metric, but X-51 I think was ~3000lbs (not sure if that includes the booster). Seems like it might be a little light for a fighter, but then again maybe it would be a twin engined fighter. Plus we're just talking about a demonstrator engine. It seems like you could make a hypersonic fighter size aircraft with that engine; the hard part would be boosting an object of that size to effective scramjet speed. What would you even launch it off of, a Falcon 9?
 
Josh_TN said:
Ten times the weight might be a different metric, but X-51 I think was ~3000lbs (not sure if that includes the booster). Seems like it might be a little light for a fighter, but then again maybe it would be a twin engined fighter. Plus we're just talking about a demonstrator engine. It seems like you could make a hypersonic fighter size aircraft with that engine; the hard part would be boosting an object of that size to effective scramjet speed. What would you even launch it off of, a Falcon 9?
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X-51 was IIRC around 3000lb without the ATACMS booster, AF fact sheet says 4000lbs doesn't say if it's for the vehicle or the whole stack. Granted the last time I saw official X-51 documentation was over 12 years ago.

FWIW 30,000 lbs is an early F-16 in an A2A loadout, which is too big to fit under the wing of a BUFF. Why bring this up? One of the BUFF pilot, TPS instructor, then hypersonics guy, now retired just became the CTO at Stratolaunch, which announced it's focus is now hypersonic research. Coincidence?

If things scale up here, a 30,000 lb demonstrator would need a 10,000 lb booster if you can get the carrier up to 48-49,000 ft. The carrier can take up to a 500,000 lb payload to 35,000 ft, so a 30,000 lb demonstrator with a 20,000 lb booster is only 10% capacity. No need for something as big as an F9 first stage. Wonder if we're in for an announcement in the near future...

Edit:
Forgot to mention, Milkman (the CTO), who hated that call sign because he hated Karl Malone "The Mailman" (couldn't stand the Jazz), so he named himself "Doctor". So us crew dogs being crew dogs called him "Dr. Love" just to piss him off. Totally off topic funny aside, aside, Milkman/Doctor/Dr. Love was very heavily evolved in X-51 program even if Shotgun ended up flying the mission in the left seat...
 
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@mkellytx : I think that at 30 000lb you can fit a fighter engine and have an hybrid propulsion setup (jet/rocket/scramjet).
Then, it doesn't put aside the need for Stratolaunch to carry it around during tests or provide range for the vehicule.
 
TomcatViP said:
@mkellytx : I think that at 30 000lb you can fit a fighter engine and have an hybrid propulsion setup (jet/rocket/scramjet).
Then, it doesn't put aside the need for Stratolaunch to carry it around during tests or provide range for the vehicule.
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@TomcatViP my read on this is not a hybrid propulsion otherwise you'd see something like an SR-72. My assumption is pure and simple a 30klb class demonstrator, with a booster that gets in hypersonic to start the SCRAM jet.
 
mkellytx said:
Josh_TN said:
Ten times the weight might be a different metric, but X-51 I think was ~3000lbs (not sure if that includes the booster). Seems like it might be a little light for a fighter, but then again maybe it would be a twin engined fighter. Plus we're just talking about a demonstrator engine. It seems like you could make a hypersonic fighter size aircraft with that engine; the hard part would be boosting an object of that size to effective scramjet speed. What would you even launch it off of, a Falcon 9?
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X-51 was IIRC around 3000lb without the ATACMS booster, AF fact sheet says 4000lbs doesn't say if it's for the vehicle or the whole stack. Granted the last time I saw official X-51 documentation was over 12 years ago.

FWIW 30,000 lbs is an early F-16 in an A2A loadout, which is too big to fit under the wing of a BUFF. Why bring this up? One of the BUFF pilot, TPS instructor, then hypersonics guy, now retired just became the CTO at Stratolaunch, which announced it's focus is now hypersonic research. Coincidence?

If things scale up here, a 30,000 lb demonstrator would need a 10,000 lb booster if you can get the carrier up to 48-49,000 ft. The carrier can take up to a 500,000 lb payload to 35,000 ft, so a 30,000 lb demonstrator with a 20,000 lb booster is only 10% capacity. No need for something as big as an F9 first stage. Wonder if we're in for an announcement in the near future...

Edit:
Forgot to mention, Milkman (the CTO), who hated that call sign because he hated Karl Malone "The Mailman" (couldn't stand the Jazz), so he named himself "Doctor". So us crew dogs being crew dogs called him "Dr. Love" just to piss him off. Totally off topic funny aside, aside, Milkman/Doctor/Dr. Love was very heavily evolved in X-51 program even if Shotgun ended up flying the mission in the left seat...
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A nice announcement would be a true air launched “strategic” strike weapon (by treaty definition greater than +5500 km)
 
mkellytx said:
TomcatViP said:
@mkellytx : I think that at 30 000lb you can fit a fighter engine and have an hybrid propulsion setup (jet/rocket/scramjet).
Then, it doesn't put aside the need for Stratolaunch to carry it around during tests or provide range for the vehicule.
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@TomcatViP my read on this is not a hybrid propulsion otherwise you'd see something like an SR-72. My assumption is pure and simple a 30klb class demonstrator, with a booster that gets in hypersonic to start the SCRAM jet.
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It was a ground wind tunnel test, so the complications of getting the inlet speeds up to the required level in a non experimental way were not addressed.
 
Josh_TN said:
It was a ground wind tunnel test, so the complications of getting the inlet speeds up to the required level in a non experimental way were not addressed.
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Exactly. The conditions of a tunnel very controlled and pristine compared to free flight. Free flight is more messy even for steady state activities. Next step is to repeatedly demonstrate the ability to do multiple steady state activities. Remember there are only 9 mins worth of X-51 data, that's precious little data, most of it is climbing straight ahead accelerations. Before jumping to a SR-72, it would be nice to demonstrate climbing/descending turns, level accelerations/decelerations all without unstarting the engine. Which means most important thing to demonstrate is the ability to restart an unstarted engine.

This would still very much be an X-plane, something like a SR-72 concept seams more to be a Y prefix prototype.
 
TomcatViP said:
@mkellytx : I think that at 30 000lb you can fit a fighter engine and have an hybrid propulsion setup (jet/rocket/scramjet).
Then, it doesn't put aside the need for Stratolaunch to carry it around during tests or provide range for the vehicule.
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@TomcatViP My first reply stated what I thought was next, I didn't really adequately explain why what you suggest here isn't a likely next step. It's very easy visualize a 30,000 lb Viper and then think why off course have a proper engine, landing gear and the like. That 30,000 lb Viper will almost drain its tanks going from the runway to Mach 2 @ 50,000 ft unless you tank after you climb and after the speed run. Consider another 30,000 lb class demonstrator, the X-15 which did go to Mach 6 or could climb to over 60 miles. The X-15 was around 12,000 lbs empty, little over 31,000 lbs fully fueled, 34,000 lb with drop tanks.

Three of the four X-51's failed, the final one flew 6 minutes, program netted 9 mins of data, never made it to Mach 6. Hybrid propulsion only adds complexity, a new system integration, a new potential for failure. The fighter sized demonstrator needs to gather hours of data to make something like SR-72 potentially viable. Notice DARPA hasn't responded to LM's marking campaign and LM hasn't invested billions of IRAD to develop. Next step, reusable, able to maneuver, able to restart it's engine in flight and able to gather larger sized chunks of data. X-51 could achieve 6 mins on around a 10% fuel fraction, X-15 it was about 60% fuel+oxidizer and the isp of the engine was 140, the high flights took just over 11 min. Ideally, 20-30% fuel fraction and sustain greater than 15 mins hypersonic.

An interesting aside, the X-51 guys relied heavily on X-15 data. The Hypersonic's Director mentioned that to me in 2007 interview, they wanted me to come over but I had zero interest in a job that removed me from flight status.
 
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Hi @mkellytx :
And Merry Christmas to you & all here,

You are absolutely correct. That's why I am uncertain why they should not use Stratolaunch for range.
As you put it an air start would be more appropriate to cut fuel cost. But think that with a jet engine and rocket propulsion activated right after takeoff (similar to 1970 Mirage III with rocket booster for example), they could have more than 50000lbs of thrust with a next to 2 t/w ratio.
That's enough for roughly 50/60 000ft per minute...
It will still do for a short mission radius, but might fit the needs for something like an interceptor (if there is any - low orbit included).

Airstart under Stratolaunch:
20 min at Mach 6+ is ~1000N.M range. It should fit in any tactical force employment book (even if the return leg has to be subsonic with jet only).

Please notice that I don't deny the experimental aspect that would certainly remain here. I am not saying that it would be a fully operational aircraft (if it is!). Just that they might want a little bit more from the industry that just another X.
 
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X-51 only maintained powered scramjet flight for 210 seconds before fuel exhaustion. Presumably the rest of the flight was rocket boost and post burn out glide.
 
Well, if we stick to the arbitrary 10 time factor, 210s ~=3min
Ten time that is 30min

Hence my 20 min run at Mach 6+ for a roughly 1000N.m leg ;)
 
...
 

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TomcatViP said:
Hi @mkellytx :
And Merry Christmas to you & all here,

You are absolutely correct. That's why I am uncertain why they should not use Stratolaunch for range.
As you put it an air start would be more appropriate to cut fuel cost. But think that with a jet engine and rocket propulsion activated right after takeoff (similar to 1970 Mirage III with rocket booster for example), they could have more than 50000lbs of thrust with a next to 2 t/w ratio.
That's enough for roughly 50/60 000ft per minute...
It will still do for a short mission radius, but might fit the needs for something like an interceptor (if there is any - low orbit included).

Airstart under Stratolaunch:
20 min at Mach 6+ is ~1000N.M range. It should fit in any tactical force employment book (even if the return leg has to be subsonic with jet only).

Please notice that I don't deny the experimental aspect that would certainly remain here. I am not saying that it would be a fully operational aircraft (if it is!). Just that they might want a little bit more from the industry that just another X.
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@TomcatViP Mostly we seem to be in violent agreement. There may, however, be a lot of underlying assumptions, knowledge and experience underlying each of our preferences here that make me feel like we might be talking past each other. Given the title of the thread my read is you are looking for a solution that is most like a functioning weapons system. If that's the case, you are correct a hybrid system on a fighter sized demonstrator is closest to an ISR/strike weapons system and could be a good risk reduction for a 100,000 lb. class SR-72 type of vehicle.

Where I think you and I differ is that level of knowledge/maturity/understanding of the aerodynamics, flight dynamics, propulsion integration for airbreathing hypersonic free flight is enough to support a DoD program of record with the data available (X-43/X-51) with acceptable political, programmatic and technical risk. It can be done, the technologies without a doubt can be developed and matured. Can they be developed and matured with an acceptable political, programmatic (cost/schedule/[performance) and technical risk in a single step? No. This is my gut feel based on some interaction with the subject, interaction with some of the players and from working in DoD acquisitions for several years.

The fact that the first batch of urgent need hypersonic weapons developed are all rocket boost with various hypersonic glide/maneuver vehicles tend to verify my gut. Yes, there is funding for airbreathing weapons, however the delivery schedule for those is further to the right, that also backs up my gut on the maturity of the tech.

The political side is pretty self explanatory, look at the start and stop nature of airbreathing hypersonic programs over the last 40 years. Even the successful programs have a mixed record of success compared to the program objectives. This doesn't exactly help if you're a bright major, program officer in the Pentagon trying to get funding for your pet project. Let's not forget either the broader political environment, when X-51 was going on sequestration was all the rage, that doesn't help get funding for the next step.

The programmatic side is also pretty easy to follow. It's not that we can't solve the technical problems, it's can we solve the technical problems with a reasonable cost and schedule. This is where the challenge of integrating 3 separate propulsion technologies is a real challenge. If there are only minutes of powered hypersonic flight data, spending time and money (engineering NRE) on integrating takes away from NRE on the hypersonic problem. Not that these won't need to be done, I just believe given my experience that it's better to solve the hypersonic problem before solving the integration problem. Integration by nature isn't strictly addition, a lot of times it's more like multiplication. Now, designing a gas turbine inlet, GT, exhaust system that can operate from .6M to 3.0M requires some engineering work, it's well understood, but making it work with a ramjet that can work as a scramjet is challenging. Skip the ramjet and use a rocket to cover 3.0M to 4.9M, that adds a third system which now takes up volume and weight cutting into fuel fraction. Integrated rocket scramjet is a viable option, the challenge is coming up with a rocket to fit into the nozzle and combustion chamber that can accelerate from .8M to 4.9M. Very good for a viable weapons system, mature enough to put into a demonstrator in 3-4 years, questionable.

Rocket booster behind the hypersonic vehicle, proven and well understood. Integration here is not as big of a challenge, the demonstrator can focus only on the hypersonic scramjet simplifying the demonstrator to only integrating one propulsion system and solving the problems of free flight with only that single propulsion system. Now, before writing this reply I spent a bit of time going back through my gouge and catching up on hypersonics, Stratolaunch and a bunch of other stuff. The interesting thing I came across was that Stratolaunch is working with NG to integrate Pegasus XL. Recall, the original Pegasus first stage was the booster for X-43, so I spent some time tracking down the Pegasus XL User Guide. The stats for Pegasus XL first stage are 36,195 lb., max vacuum thrust 162,034 lbf and 69 second burn time. A bit bigger than the ATACMS booster X-51 ratio multiplied by 10, but considering Stratolaunch's published launch point is for a 500,000 lb payload launched at 35,000 ft., proportionally the booster will need more smash to cover the greater Δh and the more dense air (ρ @ 35kft = 0.3805 g/L, ρ @ 50 kft = 0.1876 g/L). The combined 30,000 lb demonstrator and first stage is just over 66,0000 lbs (T/W conveniently is 2.45 @ launch).

Finally, the challenge of finding the range space to test this thing. MGen Eichorn's presentation covers this a bit. Curiously, one of the things I vividly remember from my interview with the Director of Hypersonics was reviewing the maps of the supersonic corridors used for the YB-70 as a basis for new hypersonic corridors. There are options here that could work. Fortunately, one of the first principles of flight test is a building block approach to test points. Why do I mention this? Those 1,000 mile swath's of airspace aren't required for the early tests. Building block approach, you'll keep the first tests short, demonstrate basic controllability and ability to accelerate and turn and RTB. Pretty much existing ranges are enough to perform the early tests, if successful it sets the stage for doing longer tests.

Alright, I've written a book now, which I hate doing at risk of boring the readership. This however, is about the most succinct account I can assemble to explain what comes next for airbreathing hypersonics based upon my interactions with the field and the practitioners. Hopefully this is not too much of a bore.
 

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