Army to re-purpose Navy booster and build road-mobile, deep-strike hypersonic weapon
https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/army-re-purpose-navy-booster-and-build-road-mobile-deep-strike-hypersonic-weapon
November 5, 2018 at 2:34 PM
The Army is launching a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon program to develop a capability to punch through contested, anti-access environments -- a big-ticket acquisition project that will re-purpose a Navy hypersonic booster being developed by Lockheed Martin for use on a road-mobile system, giving ground forces a conventionally armed strategic system for the opening salvos of a major fight.
On Oct. 4, the Army presented secret plans for this new deep-strike weapon to a select industry audience, setting in motion an effort to rapidly field a ground-launched variant of a hypersonic boost glide vehicle and advancing the Pentagon's goal of fielding a new triad of conventionally armed, ultra-fast, maneuvering, long-range missiles, according to service officials.
"The plan right now is to work a road-mobile hypersonic weapon for the Army being as common as we can with what the Navy is producing as well," a service official told Inside Defense.
"We want to get multidomain battle to where we can come in very survivably and take out anti-access, area-denial threats and then that opens the corridor for other assets to come in that may not be as survivable, we can open those lanes up and they can come in as needed," said the official.
Last month, the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Strategic Forces Command (SMDC/ARSTRAT) invited eight companies as part of an effort to conduct market research on the service's desire for a "limited operational capability" Long Range Hypersonic Weapon.
"The industry day was held at [the] secret level," Cecil Longino, Jr., an Army spokesman said. No acquisition strategy for LRHW has been set, he added.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has directed the Army to adapt for ground use a booster the Navy is developing for a submarine-launched hypersonic weapon.
On June 28, Navy Strategic Systems Programs office awarded Lockheed Martin Space, Sunnyvale, CA, an $11.8 million contract for Hypersonic Boost technology development as part of a project to demonstrate technologies related to the intermediate-range capability "through booster design, fabrication and validation testing."
"We want to capitalize on that work and get something out as quickly as we can," said an Army official of the Navy program.
While the purpose of the industry day was to conduct market research, the goal is to identify a single company to act as weapon system integrator for the LRHW, according to a service official.
The industry day event was limited to companies retained by SMDC/ARSTRAT as part of the Design, Development, Demonstration and Integration -- or D3I -- contract awarded in 2017 for "a research and development effort for the design, development, demonstration, and integration, domain-one of space/high altitude and missile defense hardware and software solutions."
The D3I contractors are BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Rockville, MD; Dynetics Inc., Huntsville, AL; KBRwyle Technology Solutions, Columbia, MD; Northrop Grumman Technical Services, Herndon, VA; QWK Integrated Solutions, Huntsville, AL; Raytheon, Tewksbury, MA; Science Applications International Corp., McLean, VA and Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, AL.
The Army expects to craft a request for proposals for one of these companies to be a prime contractor to integrate all parts of an LRHW system, including fire control, a launcher, communications and everything else associated with a complete missile system.
"We have to create an all-up round," said a service official. "The Navy's booster is going to be on a sub, which is a very known, controlled environment. The Army's [operating] environment will be much more harsh: our temperature constraints will be from [extreme cold] to [extreme hot] with different shock and [vibration] requirements from driving on a road."
Army leaders are still ironing out a number of decisions about the way forward for the program.
The objective at this point is a "limited operational capability LRHW with the goal of going to a long-term program of record," said an official. "That's really where we'd like to go."
When could an LRHW be fielded?
"Four to five years," said the official. "It is all driven by the Navy booster development. We have proposed some other solutions using off-the-shelf boosters that are good possibilities. But so far the path we've been directed to go is looking at the Navy's booster and making it a road-mobile Army system."
Pentagon leaders this summer committed to collaborate closely on hypersonic weapon technology development. All three military departments are exploring how to adopt an Army-designed hypersonic, boost-glide vehicle developed as part of the Conventional Prompt Strike technology development program led by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for service-specific platforms.
DOD is now laying the groundwork for a new triad of conventional, hypersonic-strike weapons to arm the military services based on a Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) paired with rockets tailored to launch from service-specific platforms, a major step toward ushering in a new class of ultrafast, maneuvering weapons across the U.S. military.
The Air Force believes it has the "easiest path" within the U.S. military to fielding a long-range, maneuvering hypersonic weapon and plans to arm the B-52 bomber with such a conventionally armed weapon as soon as 2020, according to service officials.
The Navy's program is called the Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike program, which aims to develop a weapon that can be launched from a submarine.
Army to re-purpose Navy booster and build road-mobile, deep-strike hypersonic weapon
By Ashley Tressel Jason ShermanNovember 5, 2018 at 2:34 PM
The Army is launching a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon program to develop a capability to punch through contested, anti-access environments -- a big-ticket acquisition project that will re-purpose a Navy hypersonic booster being developed by Lockheed Martin for use on a road-mobile system, giving ground forces a conventionally armed strategic system for the opening salvos of a major fight.
On Oct. 4, the Army presented secret plans for this new deep-strike weapon to a select industry audience, setting in motion an effort to rapidly field a ground-launched variant of a hypersonic boost glide vehicle and advancing the Pentagon's goal of fielding a new triad of conventionally armed, ultra-fast, maneuvering, long-range missiles, according to service officials.
"The plan right now is to work a road-mobile hypersonic weapon for the Army being as common as we can with what the Navy is producing as well," a service official told Inside Defense.
"We want to get multidomain battle to where we can come in very survivably and take out anti-access, area-denial threats and then that opens the corridor for other assets to come in that may not be as survivable, we can open those lanes up and they can come in as needed," said the official.
Last month, the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Strategic Forces Command (SMDC/ARSTRAT) invited eight companies as part of an effort to conduct market research on the service's desire for a "limited operational capability" Long Range Hypersonic Weapon.
"The industry day was held at [the] secret level," Cecil Longino, Jr., an Army spokesman said. No acquisition strategy for LRHW has been set, he added.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has directed the Army to adapt for ground use a booster the Navy is developing for a submarine-launched hypersonic weapon.
On June 28, Navy Strategic Systems Programs office awarded Lockheed Martin Space, Sunnyvale, CA, an $11.8 million contract for Hypersonic Boost technology development as part of a project to demonstrate technologies related to the intermediate-range capability "through booster design, fabrication and validation testing."
"We want to capitalize on that work and get something out as quickly as we can," said an Army official of the Navy program.
While the purpose of the industry day was to conduct market research, the goal is to identify a single company to act as weapon system integrator for the LRHW, according to a service official.
The industry day event was limited to companies retained by SMDC/ARSTRAT as part of the Design, Development, Demonstration and Integration -- or D3I -- contract awarded in 2017 for "a research and development effort for the design, development, demonstration, and integration, domain-one of space/high altitude and missile defense hardware and software solutions."
The D3I contractors are BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Rockville, MD; Dynetics Inc., Huntsville, AL; KBRwyle Technology Solutions, Columbia, MD; Northrop Grumman Technical Services, Herndon, VA; QWK Integrated Solutions, Huntsville, AL; Raytheon, Tewksbury, MA; Science Applications International Corp., McLean, VA and Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, AL.
The Army expects to craft a request for proposals for one of these companies to be a prime contractor to integrate all parts of an LRHW system, including fire control, a launcher, communications and everything else associated with a complete missile system.
"We have to create an all-up round," said a service official. "The Navy's booster is going to be on a sub, which is a very known, controlled environment. The Army's [operating] environment will be much more harsh: our temperature constraints will be from [extreme cold] to [extreme hot] with different shock and [vibration] requirements from driving on a road."
Army leaders are still ironing out a number of decisions about the way forward for the program.
The objective at this point is a "limited operational capability LRHW with the goal of going to a long-term program of record," said an official. "That's really where we'd like to go."
When could an LRHW be fielded?
"Four to five years," said the official. "It is all driven by the Navy booster development. We have proposed some other solutions using off-the-shelf boosters that are good possibilities. But so far the path we've been directed to go is looking at the Navy's booster and making it a road-mobile Army system."
Pentagon leaders this summer committed to collaborate closely on hypersonic weapon technology development. All three military departments are exploring how to adopt an Army-designed hypersonic, boost-glide vehicle developed as part of the Conventional Prompt Strike technology development program led by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for service-specific platforms.
DOD is now laying the groundwork for a new triad of conventional, hypersonic-strike weapons to arm the military services based on a Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) paired with rockets tailored to launch from service-specific platforms, a major step toward ushering in a new class of ultrafast, maneuvering weapons across the U.S. military.
The Air Force believes it has the "easiest path" within the U.S. military to fielding a long-range, maneuvering hypersonic weapon and plans to arm the B-52 bomber with such a conventionally armed weapon as soon as 2020, according to service officials.
The Navy's program is called the Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike program, which aims to develop a weapon that can be launched from a submarine.
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