USAF Begins Market Research for New Hypersonic Missile Written 30 April 2020

FlightGlobal reports that the US Air Force (USAF) “is conducting market research in search of companies capable of helping to build an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile.” The USAF said that the goal of the Future Hypersonics Program is to develop a “solid-rocket boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic conventional cruise missile, air-launched from existing fighter [or] bomber aircraft.” The service said, “The effort involves the use of digital engineering and model-based engineering practices for requirements, design, trade studies, and analyses. … This weapon system must be designed and analysed to achieve a preliminary design review in [the fourth quarter of FY2021].” The USAF is also developing – “in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency” – a “cruise missile called the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC).” A “Raytheon-Northrop Grumman team and a Lockheed Martin-Aerojet Rocketdyne team are offering competing designs in the HAWC effort.”
Full Story (FlightGlobal)