The United States Hypersonic Weapons Programs - A Backgrounder

With Russia now successfully fielding its Oreshnik medium range hypersonic missile, it is an appropriate time to take a closer look at how America's armed forces are doing with their own hypersonic missile programs.  

  

According to a 2023 report from the Congressional Budget Office, America's Army, Navy and Air Force are each developing their own hypersonic missiles.  These missiles have two key defining characteristics:

  

1.) they must be capable of achieving speeds in excess of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound in the air at sea level i.e. within the earth's atmosphere) or 3836 miles per hour.  

 

2.) they must have aerodynamic control surfaces (i.e. wings or tail fins) that allow them to be maneuvered like an aircraft rather than using thrusters as in the case of most intercontinental ballistic missiles in use today.

 

The U.S. military is developing two types of hypersonic missiles both of which require air to operate for reasons outside of maneuvering:

 

1.) a hypersonic boost-like missile which consists of a rocket motor that accelerates the missile to a high altitude and speed and a glide body that detaches from the rocket once its fuel is spent.  The glue body uses lift generated by its movement through the air to extend its range and maneuver towards its target.

 

2.) a hypersonic cruise missile that accelerates to a high speed using a rocket motor.  Once the rocket booster is exhausted, the missile accelerates and maintains its speed using a supersonic combustion ramjet or scramjet, using oxygen from the atmosphere to burn its fuel.  Scramjets only being to operate at speeds above Mach 4 since they require supersonic airflow to function.

  

Here is a graphic showing the progress of the Department of Defense's hypersonic boost-glide missiles:

 

 

The original program from 1985 successfully designed and tested a design for a missile glide body.  The second track of hypersonic missile research began in 2003 when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA started the Force Application and Launch From Continental United States or FALCON project which was designed to study technologies that would allow missiles to be launched from the United States rather than from locations closer to their targets.  In 2008, Congress established the Conventional Prompt Global Strike Program to advance some of the technology developed by FALCON, focusing on a concept for an intercontinental-range hypersonic glider.

 

In the case of hypersonic cruise missiles, research on supersonic ramjet engines began in the 1950s, however, the first American successful test flight of a scramjet did not occur until 2004 when NASA's X-43 successfully flew several tests in horizontal flight, reaching a speed of MACH 9.6.  A scramjet-powered X-51 aircraft was successfully flown at Mach 5.1 for 210 seconds in 2013.

 

As of 2023, the United States DoD had spend more than $8 billion since 2019 to develop hypersonic missiles through separate programs led by the Army, Navy and Air Force.  In the 2023 Future Years Defence Program, on behalf of the Army and Air Force programs, DoD is requesting an additional $13 billion between 2023 and 2027 for development of hypersonic missiles and an additional $2 billion for missile acquisition.

 

Here is a table showing the current U.S. hypersonic weapons programs and their funding:

 

 

Note that the Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) aka Dark Eagle and the Air Force's Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) were scheduled for fielding in 2023 however, that did not occur.

 

Let's look at the Army's LRHW program from Lockheed Martin's perspective going back to 2014:

 

On June 28, 2024, the DoD announced a flight test of the LRHW as shown here after a series of failed attempts during 2022 and 2023:

 

 

Problems with the launcher and launch sequencer have led the Congressional Budget Office to project act the first LRHW battery will not be "capable" until at least July 2025 as shown here:

 

 

Now, let's look at the Air Force's ARRW program, again from Lockheed Martin's perspective:

 

 

Here is a screen capture showing the company's planned hypersonic programs:

 

The AGM-183A ARRW was last tested on March 17, 2024 and is undergoing final analysis of its flight test data.  That said, Lockheed Martin claims that it is ready to deliver ARRW technology to the Air Force even though cancellation of the program appears to be quite possible.  On September 26, 2024, it was announced that Lockheed Martin's ARRW program would receive an additional $13 million in funding bringing the cumulative value of the contract to $1,319,270,400 as shown here:

 

 

Note that the work performed under the contract is supposed to be completed by August 31, 2025 suggesting that the ARRW will not be field-ready until at least that point in time.

  

In the aforementioned CBO report from 2023, the CBO estimated that purchasing 300 ground- or sea-launched hypersonic missiles intermediate-range ballistic missiles with maneuverable warheads and sustaining the missile system for 20 years would cost a total of $13.4 billion (in 2023 dollars). The same number of comparable hypersonic missiles would cost about one-third more, $17.9 billion excluding cost overruns that are often associated with technically challenging programs.

 

So, there you have it.  Russia is far, far ahead of the United States (as is China for that matter) when it comes to hypersonic warfare.  The United States military is so far behind the curve it is almost laughable particularly given that Russia has now tested its hypersonic missile technology in combat.  On the upside, however, Lockheed Martin has, once again, benefitted from the unfettered generosity of American taxpayers in its seemingly unending quest to develop hypersonic missiles which appear to be capable of far lower velocities than those of the Oreshnik missile at the very best.