Hypersonic hustle: Global efforts stepped-up to satisfy military need for speed

Transcription

1 Hypersonic hustle: Global efforts stepped-up to satisfy military need for speed [Content preview Subscribe to Jane s International Defence Review for full article] With governments and militaries looking to develop hypersonics as the next key performance parameter for weapons and surveillance platforms over the coming decades, Marina Malenic, Piotr Butowski, and Rajendrakumar Doraisamy explore the research now being undertaken in the field by the United States, Russia, and India respectively The US Department of Defense (DoD) and other US government agencies are developing hypersonic technology for two short-term and one long-term goal. The two near-term goals are hypersonic weapons that are expected to mature in the early 2020s and unmanned surveillance aircraft in the late 2020s or early 2030s, according to Robert Mercier, the deputy for technology in the high-speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), with hypersonic vehicles to follow in the longer-term. "Air-breathing access to space is a much longer-term goal," he said during a 14 January 2016 interview with IHS Jane's. "Hypersonic space vehicles are unlikely to come to fruition before the 2050s." Mercier added that the general development strategy is to start small with weapons and to then scale up to aircraft and space vehicles as the technology and materials mature. Page 1 of 10

2 Artist's rendering of HSSW air vehicle separation. The USAF expects to transition technology from the development to a procurement programme following a planned 2020 flight demonstration. (DARPA) Spiro Lekoudis, the DoD's director of weapons systems, acquisition, technology and logistics, confirmed that hypersonic weapons will likely be the first acquisition programme to emerge from the technology development being conducted throughout the department and its partner agencies. "An aircraft is certainly on a much longer timeline than a weapon," he told IHS Jane's during a 9 January interview. The US Air Force (USAF) is expected to conduct a demonstration of its High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) - a joint development with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) - around 2020, at which point the Pentagon will decide on how best to transition the technology into a hypersonic missile acquisition programme, Lekoudis noted. Page 2 of 10

3 Artist's rendering of separated High-Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) vehicle in flight. The USAF is expected to conduct a demonstration of the system - a joint development with DARPA - around (DARPA) Page 3 of 10

4 Artist's rendering of the DARPA/USAF HSSW concept. DARPA in April 2014 awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to continue development of the TBG part of the programme. (Lockheed Martin Skunkworks) [Continued in full version ] On 1 May 2013, the X-51A performed a successful flight on its fourth test. The vehicle detached from a B-52H and was powered to Mach 4.8 by the booster rocket. It separated from the booster and ignited its own engine. The X-51A then accelerated to Mach 5.1 and flew for 210 seconds until it ran out of fuel. The USAF collected telemetry data for 370 seconds of flight. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne division developed the engine for the WaveRider. The division has since been sold to Aerojet, which continues to conduct work in hypersonic propulsion but declined to comment for this article. Previously, Lockheed Martin worked with DARPA on an early hypersonic vehicle effort, the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 concept, from 2003 to The Minotaur IV light rocket was the booster for the vehicles, which were launched out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. HTV-2's inaugural flight in 2010 collected data that demonstrated advances in high lift-to-drag aerodynamics; high temperature materials; thermal protection systems; autonomous flight safety systems; and advanced guidance, navigation, and control for long-duration hypersonic flight. Lockheed Martin worked with DARPA on an early hypersonic vehicle effort, the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 concept, from 2003 to Pictured is an artist's rendering of a separated Falcon vehicle in flight. (DARPA) The two demonstration flights were successfully launched on 22 April 2010 and 11 August 2011, but both times the Falcon vehicles lost contact with control several minutes into their planned Mach 20 flight, according to DARPA statements released at the time. The X-51A programme results are now feeding into HSSW. Ordnance and a guidance system are under development via two demonstration programmes: HAWC and TBG. DARPA in April 2014 awarded Raytheon and Lockheed Martin contracts to continue development of the TBG Page 4 of 10

5 programme. The companies received deals worth up to USD20 million and USD24 million, respectively, according to a contract announcement. Boeing, meanwhile, is developing HAWC. The company declined to comment on the value of its contract for the work or when it was awarded, as did DARPA. The goal of both TBG and HAWC is to accelerate a weapon to Mach 5 or greater and to allow it to glide to its target. Such weapons have to be highly heat-resistant and manoeuvrable. They could ultimately fly at altitudes of nearly 200,000 ft. The warhead under development for a hypersonic missile is in the 250 lb class, about the size of a Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), officials said. During the X-51A WaveRider's fourth and final flight the system reached Mach 5.1 and travelled 230 n miles in just over six minutes, marking the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight to date. (US Air Force) While the X-51A successfully demonstrated integration of an air vehicle and a hypersonic propulsion system, the focus with TBG and HAWC will be on advanced guidance and control - something that failed to fully materialise with Falcon or WaveRider. Seeker subsystems have been under development at various USAF munitions laboratories to further the capability. A March 2014 broad agency announcement (BAA) explained that TBG is attempting to develop technologies for an air-launched, tactical-range hypersonic boost-glide system and will end with a flight demonstration by "The programme will address the system and technology issues required to enable development of a hypersonic boost-glide system considering: vehicle concepts possessing the required aerodynamic and aerothermal performance; controllability and robustness for a wide operational envelope; the system attributes and subsystems required to be effective in relevant operational environments; and approaches to reducing cost and improving affordability for both the demonstration system and future operational systems," the announcement stated. The air vehicle Page 5 of 10

6 for TBG is a warhead design that separates from a booster to glides at speeds up to Mach 10 or greater. Meanwhile, HAWC, a follow-on to X-51A, will demonstrate a hypersonic cruise missile powered by a scramjet engine at slightly lower speeds - around Mach 5 and above. "HAWC technologies could... extend to future reusable hypersonic air platforms for applications such as ISR and space access," according to DARPA. Neither DARPA nor prime contractor Boeing was willing to answer additional questions about the programme. Artist's impression of proposed Northrop Grumman XS-1 spaceplane. Although the DoD's primary goals for hypersonic development are weapons and ISR aircraft, DARPA in 2013 opened the XS-1 effort to develop a reusable, unmanned hypersonic booster that will launch small-payload satellites of 1,360-2,270 kg into LEO, while also serving as a testbed for hypersonic vehicles. (Northrop Grumman) [Continued in full version ] Page 6 of 10

7 Artist's concept of the Boeing XS-1 space launch vehicle. In addition to low cost launch - estimated to be one tenth the current price tag of a heavy rocket launch - the XS-1 is also expected to serve as a space testbed for new hypersonic vehicles. (Boeing) XS-1 is one of several Pentagon efforts to reduce satellite launch costs. As the US defence budget flattens and other countries mature their capabilities, routine access to space is becoming a greater priority for national security. The use of heavy rockets to launch satellites is costly and requires careful advance scheduling for a few opportunities. Those traditional launches can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require maintenance of extensive infrastructure. As the USAF works to enact lawmakers' mandate to stop using Russian-built RD-180 heavy rocket engines to power national security satellite launches, DARPA's efforts could be an important turning point in how such launches are conducted in the future. Page 7 of 10

8 RUSSIA: MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME At the end of the existence of the Soviet Union the Raduga missile company of Dubna made the GELA (Giperzvukovoy Eksperimentalnyi Letatelnyi Apparat, Hypersonic Experimental Flying Vehicle), which was to be a prototype of Kh-90 (izdeliye 40) strategic air-launched missile powered by a TMKB Soyuz izdeliye 58 ramjet engine and capable of flying at Mach 4.5 over the distance of 3,000 km (1,864 miles); two Kh-90 missiles were to be a weapon of modernised Tu-160M strategic bomber. Work on Kh-90 was suspended in 1992, and the GELA vehicle was unveiled in The most comprehensive information about the current programmes of hypersonic air-launched weapons in Russia was presented by the former commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force Alexander Zelin in his lecture delivered at a convention of aviation manufacturers in Moscow in April According to Zelin's pronouncement, Russia has a two-staged hypersonic missile development programme under way. The first stage envisages development of a sub-strategic level air-launched missile with a range of 1,500 km and a speed of about Mach 6 by This should be followed in the next decade by a Mach 12 weapon offering global coverage. Most likely, the Mach 6 missile mentioned by Zelin is izdeliye 75, designated also GZUR (Giper- Zvukovaya Upravlaemaya Raketa, Hyper-Sonic Guided Missile), which is currently at the technical design stage with the Tactical Missiles Corporation team at Korolev near Moscow. The izdeliye 75 is likely to be 6 m (20 ft) long (the maximum size accommodated by the Tupolev Tu-95MS bomber's weapons bay; it also fits the bay of Tu-22M) and weighs about 1,500 kg (3,307 lb). It is to be powered by an izdeliye 70 ramjet developed by TMKB Soyuz. Its active radar seeker known as Gran-75 is currently in development with UPKB Detal in Kamensk-Uralsky, while the broadband passive-channel seeker is being made by TsKBA in Omsk. [Continued in full version ] Page 8 of 10

9 INDIA: THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK India's BrahMos missile programme commenced in 1998 following an agreement for joint development with Russia. Under this agreement, the principal partners are Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya and India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The first variant - a supersonic, radar-guided cruise missile - features a two-stage design and utilises solid-rocket propulsion in the first stage that accelerates the missile to supersonic speeds, while the second stage employs a liquid-fuelled ramjet that takes the missile to Mach 2.8. In effect it is an Indian-made variant of the Russian Yakhont missile. While BrahMos has been delivered to India's air force, army and navy, the decision to undertake development of the hypersonic version of the missile - BrahMos-II - was not taken until 2009, and again is a joint venture between the original partners. BrahMos-II (Kulam) is being developed to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 6 and offer increased precision over BrahMos A, it will have a maximum range of 290 km - this is limited by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), to which Russia is a signatory and restricts it from developing missiles with a range of more than 300 km for partner nations. To enable the high speed, BrahMos-II will utilise a scramjet engine and according to a number of sources Russian industry is developing a bespoke fuel formula for the engine. A key design decision was for BrahMos-II to maintain the physical parameters of the earlier variant, therefore enabling the new missile to utilise the launchers and other infrastructure already developed. [Continued in full version ] For the full version and more content: IHS Jane's Military & Security Assessments Intelligence Centre This analysis is taken from IHS Jane s Military & Security Assessments Intelligence Centre, which delivers comprehensive and reliable country risk and military capabilities information, analysis and daily insight. IHS country risk and military capabilities news and analysis is also available within IHS Jane s Intelligence Review. To learn more and to subscribe to IHS Jane s Intelligence Review online, offline or print visit For advertising solutions contact the IHS Jane s Advertising team Page 9 of 10

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