Grady: DOD preparing for ‘hypersonics 2.0 and 3.0’ to understand operational concepts

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — As several of the U.S. military services continue to develop and test hypersonic missiles, the Defense Department at large is concurrently working to understand how the weapons will fit into joint warfighting operations once they are fielded.

Over the next couple of years, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), the Pentagon’s organization dedicated to developing overarching joint operational and integrating concepts, plans to move into the next phases of hypersonic weapons development known as “hypersonics 2.0 and 3.0,” Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and JROC Chair Adm. Christopher Grady told DefenseScoop.

The effort will focus on analyzing exactly how the technology will contribute to closing future “kill webs” — that is, the multi-layered and multi-directional structure of attack leveraging assets from all domains, Grady said Nov. 9 in an exclusive interview during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the University of Notre Dame’s new hypersonics testing facility.

“It gets back to the kill web. So, where do hypersonics fit into how we are going to fight?” he said. “We know that hypersonics allow us to get after time-critical, heavily defended targets. We know that hypersonics allow us to defeat adversary hypersonics. And then, we also know that hypersonics allow us to leverage hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft missions in those two domains.”

In recent years, the United States has raced to field hypersonic weapons capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5 or higher. In addition to their speed, hypersonics maneuver through the Earth’s atmosphere mid-flight, making them harder to detect and defeat compared to traditional ballistic missiles that have a more predictable flight path through space.

Both China and Russia are actively developing and testing their own hypersonic systems, putting pressure on the Pentagon to do the same. But the technology is extremely complex and individual programs have run into a number of hurdles — particularly during test campaigns — meaning the capability has yet to cross the finish line.

While program management for hypersonic weapons falls to the services, the JROC plays a role in identifying joint capability gaps and then establishing “large R requirements” for the entire Defense Department, Grady noted.

“This is the top-down approach. And so we try to write a really strong requirement that says, ‘This is the value proposition for hypersonics.’ And I think we’ve done a pretty good job,” Grady said. “We do things across capability portfolios now, so this fits into our kill web analysis that [the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office] and the rest run.”

But before the Pentagon can implement those next phases, the services must continue down the path to developing and testing their respective systems. 

The Army is working alongside the Navy to co-develop a common hypersonic glide body, which the Army will integrate into ground launchers for its version — known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) or Dark Eagle — while the sea service plans to use a ship-launched capability called Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS).

Although both services reported a successful end-to-end flight test in June, a series of prior aborted and failed tests have delayed fielding for both weapons by at least a year. The Army is planning to conduct one more flight test for the LRHW by the end of the year to inform whether it can field the complete system to the first unit in 2025. Meanwhile, the Navy is continuing its test campaign for CPS, which it hopes to field aboard Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyers and Virginia-class attack submarines in the next few years.

As for the Air Force, the service decided to not procure or continue development of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) in fiscal 2025 after years of inconsistent testing results. The Air Force is pursuing another air-launched hypersonic weapon — the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) — and plans to begin its flight test campaign in FY ’25.

Broadly, the Defense Department has recognized mishaps during hypersonic flight test campaigns and is working to close those gaps through a number of efforts, including partnerships with academic institutions and international partners that can assist with test efforts.

A key benefit to working with universities on emerging technology development is that many have begun emphasizing both fundamental and applied research, serving as dual-use facilities for the Pentagon, Jeffrey Rhoads, vice president for research and professor at Notre Dame’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, told DefenseScoop.

“I would argue that universities, at least many of us, are stretching across that valley as far as we can,” Rhoads said in an interview. “I think, at the same time, the department and industry are stretching from the other direction to try to de-risk things writ large.”

Another focus is on taking advantage of adaptive buying strategies such as Middle Tier Acquisition — which many hypersonic programs use — to make technology transfer between government research organizations, industry and academic institutions to the Defense Department as quick as possible, Grady said.

He also emphasized the importance of working with Congress on getting flexible funding.

“The ability to move money within line items will be critical of the system that we have now with congressional oversight — that’s entirely appropriate,” Grady said. “We have to earn that trust from Congress and show them that we can do this, and we are embarking on methods to do that across the services and within the department.”