Hypersonic missile failures cast doubt on US bid to catch up with China and Russia
- Issues with Lockheed Martin’s Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon mean a tight time line to have it declared combat-ready by end September
- A production decision on the first 12 missiles that was previously planned for January is on hold pending the results of a failure review and further tests
US efforts to catch up with China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons may be set back after Lockheed Martin Corp.’s air-launched missile suffered three consecutive test failures that left it on a tight schedule.
That has put in doubt the Pentagon’s goal to declare it America’s first combat-ready hypersonic weapon and approve initial production by September 30.
China and Russia have conducted test launches and fielded their versions of the new weapons, which can travel five times the speed of sound and manoeuvre in flight like a cruise missile, making them harder to detect and shoot down.
The US weapon faces several hurdles in a development phase now expected to cost at least US$1.4 billion before it can be found to have “early operation capability”. The Air Force has not yet released an estimate of total acquisition costs or said how many of the weapons it wants.
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The latest hurdle: successfully conducting fourth and fifth tests of its booster motor by June 30. Their timing will be contingent on the results of a failure review board for the third test that was to be complete by the end of last month, according to the Air Force programme office.
If successful, those tests would be followed by the programme’s key flight test of a fully operational missile between July and September. Added to that is completion of a production readiness review to assess Lockheed’s capability to manufacture and integrate hardware for delivery.
The hypersonic Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon is a fast-track “rapid prototype” programme that has intended to cut months, if not years, off its development and deployment in the face of rapid progress by adversaries.
The weapon is intended to be dropped from a B-52H bomber and accelerated by its booster motor before a solid glide body separates and flies at hypersonic speeds to its target.
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Russia said last month that it test-fired a hypersonic missile, sending a message to the US and Nato allies in advance of its invasion of Ukraine. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has asserted that hypersonic weapons will make up the core of Russia’s non-nuclear deterrence capability in the future.
The US says Russia has deployed its Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle and its Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship and land-attack missile.
China is investing heavily in hypersonic weapons as well, putting one in orbit in July that flew 25,000 miles (40,000km) in more than 100 minutes of flight, according to the top US nuclear commander.
Russia and China are able to press ahead on new weapons without the oversight by lawmakers and the public that can slow testing and deployment under the Pentagon’s acquisition system.
Heidi Shyu, the US defence department’s undersecretary for research and engineering, said through a spokesperson that she is “supportive of the Air Force’s aggressive efforts to accelerate development”, but “the September 30 operational capability date is a very aggressive schedule”.
The Air Force is also hedging its bets on the declaration date. Its programme office said in a statement that it “continues to aggressively pursue” an early operational capability “while maintaining high standards of technical rigour”.
In spite of the test failures to date, “it is still possible to provide” that capability “in late calendar year 2022 provided future flight testing concludes as per the current plan”.
The flight test programme “has successfully demonstrated a number of first-time events”, it said.
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The chairman of a House subcommittee that monitors the programme is sceptical of US efforts to date and specifically whether the Air Force can achieve its goal this year.
“The US has a lot of catching up to do with China,” congressman Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat, said. “It will take much more than a September 30 press release to regain the lead we’ve squandered since the 1970s.”
The Pentagon’s hypersonics effort needs “funding, engineering excellence, and rapid testing to begin to reach parity.
“Even then, I worry that the US does not even know how to catch up, particularly given the repeated failures” with the missile programme that “we’ve had to date on components that should not be technically challenging”, Cooper said in a statement.
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A production decision on the first 12 missiles that was previously planned for January is on hold pending the results of the December failure review, the two additional booster motor tests and the full-missile flight.
The programme office said it “will not award a production contract without a Production Readiness Review and a successful All Up Round Test Flight”.
“To date, the team has not found any systemic quality issues at Lockheed or its subcontractors” that caused the test failures, the programme office said.
The three failures so far have occurred during limited exercises focused on demonstrating the performance of the missile’s booster motor after separating from the bomber but without the hardened glide-body warhead of an operational missile.
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The remaining schedule of increasing complexity to meet a September 30 declaration “leaves little to no room for test delays or additional flight failures, and so it will likely be challenging”, said Kelley Sayler, an analyst in advanced technology such as hypersonics.
Cristina Vite, a spokesman for Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, said in an email that “the joint government and Lockheed Martin team closely reviews every test to ensure quality measures remain in place”.
She said that with each test the missile “continues to gain significant technical maturity while accomplishing many first-time milestones”.
Lockheed was awarded an initial US$480 million development contract in April 2018 that was broadened in December 2019 to US$986 million.
