The Army and Navy recently completed a hypersonic missile flight test in the Pacific, the Pentagon said on June 28.
After several tests were canceled last year, the Pentagon described the new demonstration of the hypersonic “all-up round” as a “step forward” for the Army and Navy’s respective Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) programs.
“This flight test of the common hypersonic missile marks a milestone for our nation in the development of this capability,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe Jr., the Navy’s director of strategic systems programs, said in a statement.
The recent flight test was conducted at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, with the Pentagon noting the Army and Navy gathered data on the “end-to-end performance” of the hypersonic missile round.
As of Defense Daily’s deadline, the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office and the Office of the Secretary of Defense were still working requests to provide additional details related to the recent test and the criteria met that deemed the event successful.
The Army’s LRHW, which has been in development for over four years, will share the same all-up missile round and canister, and Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) with the Navy’s CPS program.
In 2019, the Army chose Lockheed Martin [LMT] to serve as the weapon systems integrator for the LRHW, which will be fired from a truck, while Dynetics [LDOS] is tasked with producing the C-HGB.
Following a series of three canceled live fire tests last year due to integration challenges, the Army confirmed it would not meet its planned goal to field the first operational LRHW battery with live rounds by the end of 2023 (Defense Daily, Nov. 8 2023).
A Government Accountability Office report released last month stated the Army is unlikely to field its first LRHW battery with live rounds until fiscal year 2025, due to the testing delays and projections based on “current test and missile production plans” (Defense Daily, June 18).
The Army completed fielding of the ground equipment for its first prototype hypersonic weapon battery, minus the live rounds, in the fall of 2021 to the soldiers from the I Corps’ 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, who have been testing on the equipment since then.
The Army’s $185.9 billion FY ‘25 budget request includes over $1.2 billion in LRHW funding, split between $744 million in procurement and $538 million for further research and development and testing.
The service’s budget documents note the requested funding continues the development of the C-HGB and covers a planned procurement of further ground support equipment and a basic load of eight All-Up Rounds.