Lockheed Martin has received an almost $1 billion contract to develop a hypersonic missile
that will be capable of reaching speeds of more than 5 times that of sound.
As per the contract, the weapon is dubbed Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW)
and will be air launched.
Work will start on system requirements and once this is finalized, it will be followed
by design, flight tests, and production.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes America’s Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon and
why it is needed?
Let’s get started.
The contract is between US Air Force & Lockheed Martin.
The impending contract was first revealed in April.
The aim is to design a weapon that will use hypersonic speed and high maneuverability
to avoid detection and interception.
John Snyder, vice president of Air Force Strategic Programs at Lockheed Martin said, “Our goal
is rapid development and fielding of the HCSW system, and this contract is the first step
in achieving that goal”.
According to Lockheed Martin, work will largely take place in Huntsville, Alabama, Valley
Forge, Pennsylvania, and Orlando, Florida, Additional expertise in Denver, Colorado,
and Sunnyvale, California will also be utilized.
An object is said to be hypersonic once they exceed speeds of Mach 5 or 5 times the speed
of sound.
This is about 1,715 meters per second or 3,836mph or 6,174 kmh.
There are currently two methods being applied to make hypersonic weapons.
First is by using a Scramjet engine.
The scramjet is an innovation on the Ramjet.
Ramjet engine can power flight to supersonic speeds but scramjet can enable the missile
to reach hypersonic speeds.
These engines have no moving parts, like the compressors and turbines used in the turbofan
engines found on conventional jet planes.
They rely on the huge pressures created by fast airflow into the engine to ignite fuel
and generate thrust
Second is using Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV).
In this method, the system is launched to extremely high altitudes, where it skips across
the Earth’s upper atmosphere and then glides back attaining hypersonic speed and can be
maneuvered.
It must be noted that traditional ballistic like American Minuteman iii, Russian Sarmat
or Indian Agni missile all travel at hypersonic speeds, but they follow a predictable ballistic
trajectory and can’t maneuver mid-course.
China and Russia have made rapid advances in hypersonic weapons.
Several top military analysts from the US as well the UK have rung the alarm bells.
Hypersonic weapons can beat the current anti-missile defense with their high speed and ability
to rapidly switch direction in flight.
There is no credible defense for hypersonic missiles currently.
Mike Griffin, the Pentagon’s new defense undersecretary for research and engineering,
had said, “China has built pretty mature system’ for a hypersonic missile to strike
from thousands of kilometers away.
We will, with today’s defensive systems, not see these things coming”.
China has taken the glide vehicle approach.
According to reports, the DF-17 was tested last year by China.
The DF-17 is a ballistic missile equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), which
is said to be capable of achieving speeds up to Mach 10.
In tests conducted in November 2017, the HGV flew roughly 1400 km in about 11 minutes.
Experts deem that the system has a potential to have a range of 2500 km in future.
Russia is developing multiple hypersonic systems.
Russians are using both approaches to develop hypersonic weapons.
Zircon and Kinzhal missiles are powered by scramjet engines.
The Zircon cruise missile travels between Mach 5 to 6 and range of 400 - 500 km.
According to Russian news agency Tass, it is to go into serial production this year.
Russia has also said to have successfully tested Kinzhal missile from MiG-31 fighter jet.
It reportedly has a range of 2000 km and speed of Mach 10.
The Kinzhal was one of the weapons the Russian president unveiled in his state of the nation
address earlier.
According to him, units in the country’s Southern Military District, which borders
Ukraine and the Black Sea, have deployed the missiles operationally.
During the same state of the nation address, the Russian president also unveiled a nuclear
hypersonic glide vehicle called Avangard.
This will be fitted to the future RS-26 Rubezh ICBM.
Putin said Avangard could reach speeds up to 20 times the speed of sound, hitting its
targets "like a meteorite, like a fireball.”
Technically Russia is at least ‘half a decade’ ahead of the US in the hypersonic weapons department.