Login
iscover
Lockheed Martin has officially unveiled its latest air-launched hypersonic strike weapon, Mako, designed to deliver range, speed, and lethality to the US and allied warfighters.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Mako represents one of Lockheed Martin’s first generation of missiles designed within an entirely “digital engineering ecosystem” and incorporates a host of innovations enabling the missile to operate in high-altitude environments to increase the probability of striking time-sensitive targets in heavily defended air-defence zones.
Lockheed Martin has designed the Mako with an open, multi-mission emphasis in mind, allowing the missile to support strike, maritime strike, counter-air defence and other missions.
It deploys from fifth-generation fighters including the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II with internal carriage for the Raptor and F-35C variant, external mounting for the other variants of the F-35 and will enable these platforms to deliver stand-in strike capacity with the reach to launch at operationally significant ranges that keep aircraft at safe standoff distances.
Lockheed Martin has also emphasised integration on legacy aircraft including the F/A-18, F-16 and F-15 family of aircraft, with the missile also designed to be integrated into the P-8 Poseidon platform, with integration also viable in a host of aircraft that incorporate 30-inch lugs, including bomber aircraft.
In order to accelerate the delivery of the capability into service, while mitigating costs, Mako incorporates a host of components from systems already in service, leveraging proven supply chains, while all of Mako’s subsystems are customer-validated as mature, that is at a technical readiness level six or higher.
Further enhancing the manufacturing scalability side of the equation – the company leverages additive manufacturing techniques to rapidly scale up the manufacturing and deliverability – will increase affordability when compared to traditional manufacturing methods, with Lockheed Martin stating that the guidance section manufactured using additive manufacturing meets all engineering requirements at one-tenth cost and it’s 10 times faster and cheaper than conventional subtractive methods.
Lockheed Martin’s Mako, named after the fastest shark in the seas, puts air-launched hypersonic mass on critical targets at operationally significant ranges.
