The Navy has paused and now intends to restructure its anti-ship hypersonic missile program because acquisition offers were too expensive, according to the latest Government Accountability Office (GAO) annual weapons systems assessment.
Last year, GAO noted in 2023 the Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) (HALO) weapon system program changed its acquisition strategy to quicken the transition to major capability acquisition pathway by two years to fiscal year 2025. It also eliminated the planned prototype flight tests from the middle tier of acquisition.
GAO argued the prototype flight tests usually help reduce technical risks.
The new report, published June 11, noted this initial planning change in 2024 led to the program reporting a $109 million or 20 percent cost decrease. However, this is not an overall decrease in total costs but just a result of moving the major capability acquisition pathway up by two years to 2025.
HALO completed its preliminary design review in August 2024, with both contractors: Lockheed Martin [LMT] and RTX [RTX].
In 2023 the Navy awarded the two companies contracts to start developing the HALO weapons that can be based on aircraft carriers (Defense Daily, March 29).
The Navy aims for HALO to help it operate and control contested spaces in littoral waters and to deal with anti-access/area denial (A2AD) environments, like those the military would experience in a conflict with China in the Western Pacific.
HALO is also intended to be a successor to the Long Range Anti-ship Missile (LRASM) fielded on F/A-18s and Air Force B-1Bs.
Navy officials told GAO that both contractors’ designs are the expected level of maturity and consistent with the department’s performance requirements, so no major design changes were needed. Ultimately, the HALO program plans to downselect to one contractor.
However, after all this work, the GAO report highlighted the program is currently “restructuring” because the Navy determined its system development contract offers from the two bidders “were too costly given the program’s budget.”
“The program stated that it is reconsidering its planned acquisition pathway as part of the restructuring.”
The report also said the HALO program is trying to better understand potential industrial base risks before it transitions into the major acquisition pathway. GAO has long-noted hypersonic missile industry risks like a limited number of suppliers for critical components and long production times for components caused by the processes used to manufacture them.
While the HALO program has not conducted an industrial base assessment, the report relayed that Navy officials said the program has engaged the two prime contractors to review and brief on the state of the industrial base as part of their transition to the major capability acquisition pathway.
“These reviews identified issues similar to what other hypersonic programs have faced. Left unaddressed, these issues can limit production rates and make systems more costly to produce,” the report warned.