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Raytheon and partner Northrop Grumman have been awarded a follow-on contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to reduce risk for future air-breathing hypersonic systems.
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The Raytheon-led team will build and fly additional Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) flight vehicles, throughout which the industry team will leverage data and lessons learned from earlier stages of the program to mature the operationally relevant weapon concept design.
This effort focuses on incorporating manufacturing improvements into the existing HAWC design and flight tests to expand its operating envelope while validating system performance models.
The industry team’s airframe and engine designs are closely aligned to the US Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) which will directly benefit from the continued advancements throughout the widespread development of hypersonic strike weapons.
Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon, said, “We applied learnings from each successful HAWC flight test to ensure that it is the most sophisticated system of its kind. Continuing this important program will expand our knowledge of hypersonic flight and allow us to deliver the critical capability our warfighters need.”
Dan Olson, general manager and vice-president, weapons systems, Northrop Grumman, reinforced the comments made by Whelan, saying, “The HAWC follow-on contract serves as an engine pathfinder program in our new production-ready Hypersonics Capability Center in Elkton, Maryland. Our factory of the future will seamlessly transition our validated propulsion system design into an operationally ready system to support further flight testing.”
Scramjet engines use high vehicle speed to forcibly compress incoming air before combustion to enable sustained flight at hypersonic speeds – Mach 5 or greater. The system was designed to use a widely available hydrocarbon fuel, and since it uses air for combustion, it does not have to carry the added weight of an onboard oxidiser.
By travelling at these speeds, hypersonic weapons like HAWC can reach their targets more quickly than traditional missiles, allowing them to potentially evade defence systems.
Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have been partners since 2013 and signed a teaming agreement in 2019 to develop, produce, and integrate Northrop Grumman’s scramjet engines onto Raytheon’s air-breathing hypersonic weapons.
The team has also successfully completed multiple HAWC operational prototype system flight tests where digital engineering concepts, grounded in real-world flight data, have accurately predicted and increased system performance, the combined efforts enable the production of air-breathing hypersonic weapons, the next generation of tactical missile systems.
