Raytheon Missiles and Protection, Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a $985,348,124 cost-plus-fixed-fee, with efficiency incentives, activity order for the Hypersonic Assault Cruise Missile (HACM). The duty order supplies for the HACM weapon system design, improvement and preliminary supply by the efficiency of model-based important design evaluate, qualification, integration, manufacturing and testing. Work will probably be carried out in Tucson, Arizona, and is predicted to be accomplished by March 2027. This award is the results of a restricted sources competitors with three sources. Fiscal 2022 analysis and improvement funds within the quantity of $100,000,000 are being obligated on the time of award. Air Drive Life Cycle Administration Middle, Armament Directorate, Eglin Air Drive Base, Florida, is the contracting exercise.
“HACM is a robust instance of growing and integrating fight capabilities alongside our companions from the start,” mentioned Air Drive Chief of Workers Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. “HACM will present our commanders with tactical flexibility to make use of fighters to carry high-value, time-sensitive targets in danger whereas sustaining bombers for different strategic targets.”
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“We’ve over a decade of cooperation with our Australian allies within the development of hypersonic applied sciences, and now we are going to convey that shared information to bear to handle pressing nationwide protection necessities,” mentioned Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Drive for acquisition, expertise and logistics.
In 2020, the U.S. Air Drive engaged in a multi-year, bilateral venture association with Australia often called the Southern Cross Built-in Flight Analysis Experiment (SCIFiRE) to develop air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile prototypes. The Air Drive awarded three 15-month SCIFiRE contracts in June 2021 to Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Raytheon Applied sciences Corp. to finish preliminary designs of a hypersonic cruise missile. The HACM program will now operationalize the Raytheon SCIFiRE prototype design for fighter plane integration and ship two leave-behind property with operational utility. By way of the SCIFiRE settlement, the U.S. and Australia will proceed collaborating on HACM design and improvement, together with utilizing Australian check infrastructure for the preliminary all-up-round flight exams.
The SCIFiRE effort goals to cooperatively advance air-breathing hypersonic applied sciences into full-size prototypes which are reasonably priced and supply a versatile, lengthy vary functionality, culminating in flight demonstrations in operationally related circumstances. The trouble may also pursue potential co-production alternatives between the 2 international locations, and leverages U.S. and Australian collaborative hypersonic actions during the last 15 years, specifically the Hypersonic Worldwide Flight Analysis Experimentation (HIFiRE) program. SCIFiRE continues collaborative analysis efforts involving the U.S. Air Drive, U.S. Navy, the Royal Australian Air Drive Headquarters, and the Australian Defence Science and Know-how Group. SCIFiRE is the second effort introduced beneath the Allied Prototyping Initiative, which was launched in 2019 by the Workplace of the Underneath Secretary of Protection for Analysis and Engineering by its Superior Capabilities directorate.
