Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) has awarded Boeing a $10 million contract to start development work on hypersonic missiles.
The US manufacturer will take two parallel approaches to the advanced missile research project, with one or possibly both designs progressing to flight testing.
Boeing's unit at Seal Beach, California, a former Rockwell International subsidiary, is teamed with Pratt & Whitney while Boeing's St Louis facility is working with Aerojet on alternative Affordable Rapid Response Missile (ARRM) designs.
The ARRM demonstration is geared to develop and flight-test an inexpensive high-speed tactical missile for use against time-critical, heavily defended, hard and buried targets. DARPA says the only firm requirement is an average unit flyaway price of $200,000, assuming a 3,000 missile buy.
Performance objectives for a production weapon include a minimum range of 740km (400nm) to target within 7min. The ARRM must be compatible with US Air Force and US Navy tactical fighters, strategic bombers, surface warship vertical launch systems and submarine canister launch tubes. Its payload volume must accommodate a unitary warhead, area submunitions, smart submunitions and kinetic energy penetrators.
Boeing will demonstrate the viability of the high-speed missile concepts during the current $10 million phase I research effort, which runs for 18 months. Specific activities will include ARRM concept definition, flight vehicle design and ground testing to validate critical vehicle performance characteristics. Boeing will also investigate low-cost manufacturing processes and demonstrate critical components.
Phase II, which culminates in ARRM flight testing from an operational launch platform, includes detail design of flight-test vehicles, preliminary design of low-cost production missiles and final ground tests of the missile flight vehicle configuration. DARPA has earmarked up to $40 million for phase II, which will last 30 months.
Phase II provides a contract option in which the contractor defines an engineering and manufacturing development programme. The Pentagon envisions initial fielding of the weapon around 2005, should the missile development succeed.
DARPA is managing the ARRM programme, with technical advice provided by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the USAF Research Lab- oratory's Propulsion Directorate.
Meanwhile, the USN is investigating the development of a lifting body airframe for the Boeing Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) as a hedge against ARRM development delays.
Source: Flight International