Aerojet Rocketdyne has been chosen by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Hearth Management to construct a complicated stable rocket motor booster for the second stage of a U.S. Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company (DARPA) hypersonic weapon system, referred to as Operational Fires, or OpFires. OpFires goals to develop and reveal a ground-launched missile system, enabling hypersonic boost-glide weapons to penetrate fashionable enemy air defenses and quickly and exactly have interaction essential time-sensitive targets from a extremely cellular launch platform. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Hearth Management are main the mixing effort for the third section of this system, which is specializing in missile design and maturation, launcher growth, and automobile integration. Aerojet Rocketdyne joins the Lockheed Martin-led OpFires staff which incorporates Dynetics, Northrop Grumman, and Digital Ideas & Engineering, Inc.
“As we proceed actively working with DARPA’s OpFires program to reveal a long-term resolution for the Military’s medium-range functionality, Aerojet Rocketdyne’s modern variable-range rocket motor now allows OpFires to ship payloads throughout the mid-range spectrum with a single, hypersonic missile,” mentioned Jason Reynolds, vice chairman of Superior Applications at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Hearth Management.
Commercial
“We proceed to push the envelope in our hypersonic propulsion applied sciences, whether or not by growing a high-performance stable rocket motor that may be turned off on command, like for OpFires, or by incorporating additive manufacturing into our air-breathing scramjet engines to enhance affordability,” mentioned Eileen P. Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO, and president.
Earlier than being chosen for Part 3, Aerojet Rocketdyne constructed and efficiently examined a full-scale superior rocket motor for DARPA in help of Part 2 of the OpFires program. In the course of the take a look at collection, the corporate demonstrated the stable rocket motor’s skill to terminate thrust on command. Carried out in Might on the US Military’s Redstone Take a look at Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, in help of its Part 2 contractual obligations, the take a look at follows the profitable completion of earlier Part 2 chilly gasoline testing of booster take a look at articles, which had been disclosed in July 2020, and a collection of Part 1 subscale propulsion-system take a look at firings in late 2019. The Aerojet Rocketdyne resolution supplies for a high-performance, solid-fuel ‘throttleable’ rocket motor that may be turned off earlier than burning via all of its gas, probably permitting a missile to hit targets situated wherever inside a medium-range continuum.
Aerojet Rocketdyne has efficiently examined its superior second-stage stable rocket motor as a part of an ongoing collection of static propulsion exams in help of Part 2 of the US DARPA)/ OpFires surface-to-surface tactical hypersonic weapon system growth program. Along with stable rocket motor boosters, Aerojet Rocketdyne supplies a broad vary of capabilities to help hypersonics, together with scramjets and warheads. Having supplied each the liquid and stable propulsion techniques that powered the Air Power-DARPA-NASA X-51A to hypersonic flight success, Aerojet Rocketdyne is now growing light-weight and sturdy stable rocket motor instances and incorporating additive manufacturing into its excessive efficiency air-breathing techniques. Aerojet Rocketdyne propulsion techniques, each liquid- and solid-fueled, have been on the coronary heart of nearly each main U.S. house and missile program for the reason that daybreak of the house age. All firm merchandise are manufactured at ISO 9001/AS 9100-certified amenities across the nation.
