Congress has decided to accelerate the Trump administration’s movement into the age of hypersonic weapons.
These weapons are designed to travel at Mach 6 or more, which means they fly at least six times faster than the speed of sound compared to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) re-entry vehicles, which travel at supersonic speeds closer to Mach 5 or less. Next-generation hypersonic weapon technology is designed to thwart, through speed, all existing air and missile defense systems.
Hypersonic weapons are powered by special jet engines that operate by combustion of fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the vehicle itself. Often called scramjets, they are designed to glide atop the atmosphere with combustion taking place as the airflow goes through the engine at supersonic speeds.
In July, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video showing a hypersonic missile being launched from a strategic bomber. It was the system that Russian President Vladimir Putin described back on March 1, as an offensive “high-precision, hypersonic aircraft missile system,” and in June, as the “the absolute weapon.” Called the Kinzhal (Dagger), Putin said when launched from an aircraft it “travels ten times faster than the speed of sound, can also maneuver in all phases of its flight…delivering nuclear and conventional warheads in a range of over 2,000 kilometers [1,423 miles].”
China has also been active in the field, testing hypersonic glide vehicles that could be used to deliver both nuclear and non-nuclear missiles. In early August, the Chinese reported that a hypersonic device called Starry Sky 2 was launched aboard a solid-fueled rocket and after separation, glided at speeds of 4,500 miles-per-hour, with the ability to maneuver along the way.
Moved primarily by the Russian display, the House and Senate conferees added to the fiscal 2019 Defense Appropriations Bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday, more than $1 billion more than the administration requested, for hypersonic weapons research and development, much of it funds put in since Putin’s flamboyant claims. The bill, which contains $674.4 billion overall, is expected to pass the House next week.
In the conferees’ explanation of the bill, the members listed hypersonics as one of several programs, along with directed energy, artificial intelligence and robotics programs that are needed “to prepare for this [new] threat environment.”
The biggest chunk of congressionally added fiscal 2019 money, $558,058,000, went to “Hypersonics Prototyping,” in the Air Force research and development account under “Advanced Technology Development.” In a July 30, Defense News interview, Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Dr. Will Roper said, “Hypersonics is a program where I would expect us to get out and learn a lot as we test. So rather than taking time to ensure that your tests are checking the box of something you’re confident you can do, you compress the schedule to go out and make the test focused on learning something… We’re hoping to [get to initial operational capability] within three to four years, and all of that is due to doing it as an experimental test program vice a long compliance period.”
The largest plus-up, within the hypersonics prototyping account, $200 million went to fund the development of a hypersonic conventional strike weapon. That program seeks to develop a weapon that appears similar to the Russian Dagger – placing an air-launched hypersonic weapon on either a fighter or bomber aircraft. Back in April, the Pentagon awarded a contract that could grow to over $900 million, to Lockheed Martin Co. to design, develop and integrate such a hypersonic weapon for use on fighters or bombers.
The conferees added another $50.5 million for prototype programs involving a so-called Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon. This concept sees the hypersonic weapon being attached to the front end of a ground-launched ballistic missile, so that when the rocket reaches speeds where the scramjet takes over and eventually the weapon glides back down at hypersonic speed to hit the target. In August, Lockheed Martin won another research and development contract, worth up to $400 million, for just such a weapons system.
On Monday, at the Air Force Association’s national conference, Dr. Roper mentioned “the Congressional plus ups” to hypersonics and said he thought we could get to initial operational capability (IOC) with some system in two-and-a-half years, adding, “We cannot take too long.” One thing he mentioned is the need for hypersonic wind-tunnels that can achieve the required speed and heat environment. Congress added $10 million for advanced hypersonic wind tunnel experimentation and just three days ago, bids were closed on a U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) offering for a contractor to install a hypersonic wind tunnel system and associated hardware at NRL and integrate the system with technical equipment already there.
An April 18 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Prompt Global Strike said the Pentagon was working to develop a hypersonic glide vehicle known as the “Alternate Reentry System” which would be deployed on long-range missiles. “At present, it seems likely that this vehicle could be deployed on intermediate-range missiles on Navy submarines, for what is now known as the Prompt Strike Mission.”
Congress may review other weapons options for the CPGS mission, including bombers, cruise missiles, and possibly scramjets or other advanced technologies. The conferees added $186 million to increase development of Prompt Global Strike Capability, of which $10 million was to increase spending for “quiet hypersonics research.”
Defense against hypersonic missiles is another problem. The April CRS report also said, “Members of Congress and Pentagon officials have expressed growing concerns…that the United States does not have the capability to defend against these [hypersonic Russian and Chinese] missiles.” Space News last August reported that Michael Griffin, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering told the Space & Missiles Defense Symposium, “Hypersonic vehicles are hard to see from high orbit because they are not as bright. They’re a factor of 10 or more dimmer than strategic missiles. So we have to get closer to see them and track them.” Griffin said that in addition to the U.S. network of sophisticated early warning satellites that detect missile launches, another layer will be needed for “persistent, timely global, low-latency surveillance to track and provide fire control for hypersonic threats.”
To the already $122 million in the fiscal 2019 budget for hypersonic defense, the conferees added another $10.5 million, plus another $22 million in the advanced research category.
The Congressional conferees also added $36 million to modernize the Defense Department’s test and evaluation infrastructure “in areas such as hypersonics, directed energy, augmented intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and cyberspace,” according to the conferees’ report. In addition, the conferees directed that Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering “test and evaluation infrastructure and to identify improvements required to address future warfighting capabilities.” They wanted the assessment in time for consideration in the fiscal 2020 budget request.
