As Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed video of the country’s Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic strike missile in his March 1 state of the union address, Darpa’s director confirmed the U.S. will flight test operational prototypes of a similar weapon in 2022-23.
Putin said the Mach 10, 2,000-km-range (1,240-mi.) Kinzhal, shown being launched from under the fuselage of a MiG-31, has completed development and entered service on Dec. 1, 2017.
He also revealed the Avangard, a ground-launched, intercontinental-range hypersonic strategic weapon. Shown only as an animation, this is an unpowered cruiser boosted to Mach 20 by a two-stage missile.
Showing video of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile under development to replace the R-36 Voevoda, Putin said this 11,000-km-range weapon will carry a range of nuclear warheads including a hypersonic munition.
Darpa Director Steve Walker says the agency briefed U.S. leadership in spring 2017 on Russian and Chinese advances in hypersonic weapons. As a result, he says, funding for hypersonics was boosted in the fiscal 2019 defense budget request, mainly to fund additional flight tests to mature systems for operational use.
Also in 2017, Walker says, Darpa provided the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with all its information on U.S. and rival hypersonic developments. MDA is seeking a substantial hike in funding for defenses against hypersonic weapons in its 2019 budget.
Russia’s Avangard is similar in concept to the HTV-2 hypersonic glide vehicle developed by Darpa and flight-tested twice, unsuccessfully, in 2010-11. Developed by Lockheed Martin, the Mach 20 HTV-2 also was ground-launched.
Putin’s Avangard video showed a delta-shaped vehicle being released from the second stage of its booster to re-enter the atmosphere and glide to its target, maneuvering around air defenses. The unpowered vehicle has sharply swept fins on top and body flaps at the rear for stability and control.
The Russian leader said the vehicle uses composites capable of withstanding temperatures of 1,600-2,000C (2,900-3,600F) in sustained hypersonic flight. He said the Avangard is capable of maneuvering laterally within several thousand kilometers, and in altitude, and is “invulnerable to missile defenses.”
The ground-launched hypersonic weapon “works well,” Putin said, adding that Russian industrial plants have begun serial production of the Avangard.
The Kinzhal, meanwhile, seems to be similar in concept to the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) hypersonic weapon that Darpa and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) plan to begin flight testing in 2019. TBG is essentially a scaled-down HTV-2 designed for air launch from a combat aircraft.
Putin’s video showed a Kinzhal being dropped from the MiG-31 and an animation that illustrated the weapon climbing and then diving, its flight path dividing into two to maneuver and attack a ship target from different angles. This possibly suggests the missile deploys two TBG-like unpowered hypersonic munitions.
But the video also showed what appears to be a complete missile diving vertically onto a bunker target.
Walker says the increased budget for hypersonics sought by the Pentagon for 2019 includes U.S. Air Force funding for a follow-on to TBG to develop and test several operational prototypes of a hypersonic weapon. This is the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) program.
Budget documents reveal the Air Force has leveraged Darpa’s existing “other transactions” contract with Lockheed’s Skunk Works for the TBG demonstration to launch the ARRW program.
Darpa’s own budget request, meanwhile, seeks increased funding for the TBG program, to bring on a second contractor and begin development of a version of the weapon capable of vertical launch from U.S. Navy warships.
Walker reveals Darpa also hopes to begin work with the Navy on a ship-launched version of its other high-speed strike weapon, the air-launched Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC).
Lockheed and Raytheon are competitively developing HAWC demonstrators, and Darpa and AFRL plan to begin flight tests of the scramjet-powered cruise missile in 2019. HAWC is the follow-on to the AFRL-led Boeing X-51A scramjet demonstrator that exceeded Mach 5 in 2013.
Walker says Darpa is advocating for the launch of a National Hypersonics Initiative to ensure the U.S. does not continue to fall behind Russia and China. “We pushed for more money in the budget and we did get an increase. It’s not everything we wanted, but it’s a good first step,” he says.
He plans to work with Michael Griffin, the new Pentagon undersecretary for research and engineering, as well as with NASA and the MDA to develop a hypersonics initiative. “[Griffin] understands the importance, and it is one of his top priorities,” he says.
Darpa, meanwhile, has launched a new program called Operational Fires, or OpFires, with the U.S. Army to look at how to extend their long-range fires capability with a ground-launched hypersonic glide weapon. “It is one of their top priorities,” Walker says.