Flight testing next year for ship based hypersonic missile
Artist’s conception of hypersonic missile launching from USS Zumwalt. (Lockheed Martin)
Lockheed Martin is set to be in position to conduct hypersonic launch tests from a Navy ship. Both the Army and the Navy are working with developers to test hypersonic weapons, and to eventually field them on a platform specific to these services. The Army would utilize a truck-towed launcher, and the Navy would utilize a Zumwalt class destroyer.
From Defense News:
Through a collaboration between the Army and the Navy, the hypersonic missile itself is already in flight tests, which will continue this year ahead of the Army forming its first hypersonic missile battery later in 2023. The Army has a basic truck-towed launcher and a standard weapon control system, developed through a previous weapon systems integration contract.
Now, according to Steve Layne, vice president of Hypersonic Strike Weapon Systems at Lockheed Martin, last week’s $1.2 billion contract award will use the progress so far to create a sea-based hypersonic capability.
Lockheed Martin will develop a new launcher for the Zumwalt-class destroyer, the weapon control system will be adjusted for the maritime environment, and a subsequent round of flight tests will evaluate the changes that turn the basic hypersonic weapon system into the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike capability.
Layne said Lockheed Martin, the Navy and the rest of the industry team are more than a year into developing the ship-based launcher.
“We’re mid-way through that development phase right now,” he said in a Feb. 21 interview. “We’ve done a lot of sub-scale and full-scale testing and proofing on that capability, and more to follow as we move through 2023.”
That development work this year will lead to “a flight test campaign next year.”
In November, Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the head of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs office, said the ship-based launcher would require pressurized air to shoot the weapon out of the launcher to a great enough height to allow the missile to light off without torching the ship deck below it. He said early Navy testing had already shown this was possible.
Defense News has additional information.
I’m waiting to read an article about Space Force testing “Rods From God”.
won’t work…its been tested. The idea was great, but the details made it much more difficult.
Get some!
More, faster, harder hitting Artillery Platforms is always a good thing. Going by what we’ve been reading on the Ruskies and ChiCom capabilities, I think we are more than a year behind. I guess by now, they have figured out what pronouns the missiles will use.