HYPERSONIC WEAPONS AND
US NATIONAL SECURITY:

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By Dr. Richard P. Hallion
and Maj Gen Curtis M. Bedke, USAF (Ret.)
with Marc V. Schanz

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A 21st Century Breakthroughp ac e S tud

HYPERSONIC WEAPONS AND
US NATIONAL SECURITY:
A 21st Century Breakthrough
By Dr. Richard P. Hallion and Maj Gen Curtis M. Bedke, USAF (Ret.)
with Marc V. Schanz

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Air Force Association
Arlington, VA
January 2016

Concept illustration by Andrey Zhirnov

About the Mitchell Institutefor Aerospace Studies
The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is an independent, nonpartisan policy
research institute established to promote understanding of the national security
advantages of exploiting the domains of air, space, and cyberspace. The Mitchell
Institute’s goals are 1) educating the public about the advantages of aerospace powerin achieving America’s global interests; 2) informing key decision makers about thepolicy options created by exploiting the domains of air, space, and cyberspace, and theimportance of necessary investment to keep America the world’s premier aerospacenation; and 3) cultivating future policy leaders who understand the advantages ofoperating in air, space, and cyberspace. Mitchell Institute maintains a policy not toadvocate for specific proprietary systems or specific companies in its research andstudy efforts.

© 2015 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. All rights reserved.

About the Authors
Richard P. Hallion, Ph.D, is a historian who specializes in the study of aerospacescience and technology, and is the author of numerous books and publications. He
received a doctorate in history from the University of Maryland in 1975. Among his
academic positions, he has served as curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Air and Space Museum, and as a historian with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and the US Air Force. Hallion also served as a senior policy analyst
for the secretary of the Air Force, senior advisor for air and space issues for USAF’s
directorate for security, counterintelligence, and special programs, as well as special
advisor for aerospace technology for the Air Force chief scientist. He is a fellow of theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society,and the Royal Historical Society.

Maj Gen Curtis M. Bedke, USAF (Ret.) is a defense, aerospace, and federal scienceand technology consultant. He retired from the US Air Force in 2010 after 32 yearsof service, with extensive experience in defense science and technology, acquisition,
operations, and experimental flight-testing. His assignments have included serving
as commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio,
commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, anddirector of the National Security Operations Center at the National Security Agency,
Fort Meade, Maryland, among others. A command pilot, Bedke was an operational
B-52 wing commander and an experimental test pilot, having flown 80 different
aircraft over his career.

Marc V. Schanz is the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ director of publications.

Contents
FOREWORD________________________________________________________ 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY______________________________________________ 2

THE COMING AGE OF HYPERSONIC POWER_________________________ 4
The Hypersonic Environment: Supersonic Isn’t Fast Enough_______ 7
Hypersonics: Great Promise and Potential Threat________________ 8
The Practical Reality of Hypersonic Strike________________________ 9
Hypersonics and Requirements________________________________ 10
Restoring the Edge of America’s Joint Forces___________________ 11

WHAT HYPERSONICS OFFER_______________________________________ 13
Hypersonics and the Sensor-to-Shooter Factor__________________ 14
Hypersonics and Target Sets__________________________________ 16
Hypersonics and the Future of Joint Operations________________ 17

THE SITUATION WE FACE__________________________________________ 18
The Path Forward: Recommendations__________________________ 21

CONCLUSION: HYPERSONICS—THE RIGHT DECISION________________ 25

Foreword
The field of hypersonics is an important emerging area of applied science and technology in the 21st
century which holds great potential both to protect Americans from a wide range of threats, or in thewrong hands, could endanger the United States and its deployed forces around the world.
In an era of constrained defense budgets and increasing modernization needs, it is understandable
any new concept requiring taxpayer investment must be rigorously examined. After discussions with avariety of decision makers in government and the defense community, we believe present and emerging
security requirements call for a clear understanding of what this technology could entail for our national
defense, by addressing the following questions:•

What is hypersonic technology?

•

Why is this technology important now?

•

How can it benefit the United States, its allies, and partners?

•

What is a reasonable path forward to realize these benefits?

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is an independent, nonprofit research and analysis organization
founded by the Air Force Association, which has advocated for aerospace power in defense of our nation
since its incorporation in 1946. This paper does not advocate specific programs or industrial initiatives,in keeping with this tradition. In this study, we aim to reveal the value of hypersonics, evaluate the field’s
import for our defense, and propose a focused way ahead to realize success.
						
								R. Hallion and C. Bedke
November 14, 2015

www.mitchellaerospacepower.org

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Executive Summary
Hypersonics—flight at five times the speed of sound (3,600 mph and above)—promises to revolutionize
military affairs in the same fashion that stealth did a generation ago, and the turbojet engine did a generation
before. By fundamentally redefining the technical means of power projection, the US can circumvent
challenges facing the present force.

... all evidence shows
hypersonic weapons ...
are now within a decadeof operational fielding

Though piloted, inhabited aircraft making routine use of hypersonics arestill years away, all evidence shows hypersonic weapons capable of launchfrom aircraft, surface vehicles, ships, and submarines are now within adecade of operational fielding, with aerospace industry claiming this ispossible in half that time—provided the United States makes a necessarycommitment to steady, disciplined investment to realize this technology.

Hypersonic weapons offer advantage in four broad areas for US combat forces. They can project striking
power at range without falling victim to increasingly sophisticated defenses; they compress the shooter-to-target window, and open new engagement opportunities; they rise to the challenge of addressing
numerous types of strikes; and they enhance future joint and combined operations. Within each of these
themes are other advantages which, taken together, redefine military power projection in the face of anincreasingly unstable and dangerous world.
To make real progress, policy leaders and decision makers must lay out a consistent and disciplined path
to close remaining technology gaps, foster the conditions for concepts of operation to develop, and allow
robust testing and deployment of hypersonic weapons.
Hypersonic weapon technologies are surprisingly close to maturity. As such, we must commit to sustained
hypersonic research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) efforts leading to technology transition,and cultivate programs designed to improve our combat power and capability. Those efforts must be driven
by focused and achievable weapons programs that provide our military steadily improving capabilities overthe next decades. We must break from old habits of overly aggressive, expensive failures and lack of followon to our successes in this field. Government and military leaders with vision will need to work with theservice laboratories, industry, and academia to achieve these goals.
A successful path forward to realize this is achievable. This study makes recommendations in five criticalareas of focus.
First, the US government and defense leaders must understand the state and near term potential of
hypersonics, and commit to a steady path to practical weapons capabilities with clear goals andconsistent funding.

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Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

Second, we must establish a realistic acquisition strategy and guide a practical requirements assessment
and development process for concepts of operation, science and technology, research and development,
testing, and life cycle management activities.
Third, we must conduct the remaining technology maturation efforts to bring required subsystems tosufficient readiness to begin actual weapon development with high confidence.
Fourth, we must ensure the construction and refurbishment of proper test facilities and range
infrastructure and provide resources to support this effort.
Finally, we must create and sustain an educated, motivated cadre of hypersonics professionals to keep
our nation on the leading edge of this field.
Hypersonics technologies and weapons are both vitally important and inevitable—for those who
prioritize their development. We must ensure the United States secures this technological advantage, andsecures the military advantage to protect our interests for decades to come.

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The Coming Age of Hypersonic PowerThe United States today faces numerous global security challenges that threaten its interests, and those of
its allies and partners. Traditional tools of military power projection—large ground intervention forces,
conventional air attack, and strikes by sea via cruise missiles—are either impractical or increasingly
problematic due to advances in modern weaponry. Arguably, America’s military power today is postured
much like it was in the 1970s, when the first radar-guided surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and radar-based
air defense systems threatened to make air campaigns increasingly costly, forcing planners to rethink
many of their operational assumptions. In the later years of the Vietnam War, modern SAMs took a toll
on US airpower over Southeast Asia, downing over 1,000 aircraft, leading to the capture of hundreds ofprisoners of war, and altering the conflict’s conclusion.1
But a notional future US and allied air strike scenario could play out very differently, with a newcapability to wield against future opponents. A hardened, dispersed, and well defended nuclear weapons
program hundreds of miles inside a notional adversary nation, for example, could be quickly dismantledwith the aid of hypersonic strike weapons. Traveling at speeds exceeding Mach 5 not long after launch,these weapons would circumvent many of the challenges a modern day strike force now faces. Instead ofworking to establish air superiority, establish tanker support, position personnel recovery assets, establish
airborne command and control networks, prosecute electronic warfare, and infiltrate attack platforms
through myriad defenses, a hypersonic strike would unfold far more rapidly, with far fewer support
requirements. Unable to intercept these high speed weapons, a first strike wave could simultaneously
eliminate the most heavily defended enemy nuclear facilities and key targets in a fraction of the time, ata much lower threshold of risk to attackers.

Hypersonic strike weaponry
is an emerging arena that withinvestment, focus, and support,
could contribute to renewing
the United States’ strategic
military advantage.

1

4

Without change, though, a similar dynamic to the later yearsof the Vietnam War could emerge today. Pursuing linear
development of existing technologies will afford diminishingreturns, at greater cost, and is not sustainable in the long term.
Today, US power projection is searching for a “game changer”
in the era of the “third offset,” as Deputy Secretary of Defense
Robert Work declared, to gain desired strategic aims in amore effective manner. Like America’s investment in nuclear
weaponry to offset conventional Soviet power in the 1950s, andthe pursuit of precision and stealth in the 1970s fundamentallychanged US military power projection, the search for a 21st century

John Schlight, “A War Too Long: The USAF in Southeast Asia, 1961-1975,” Air Force History Support Office, Washington, D.C., 1996, 103.

Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

technological edge is under way.2 Hypersonic strike weaponry is an emerging arena that with investment,
focus, and support, could contribute to renewing the United States’ strategic military advantage.
The advantages which emerged from the “second offset” era of the 1970s, stealth aircraft advances andprecision attack, are still fundamental components of US military power today. The first of these renderedmoot the Soviet Union’s investment in radar-based air defense technology, and the second gave combat
air forces the ability to strike targets anywhere, anytime, and with weapon impacts less than ten feet from
aim points. Stealth and precision weapons imposed massive costs on potential adversaries, with the US
reshaping conditions necessary to generate decisive effects.
Stealth and precision proved critical to the United States’ swift victory in the 1991 Persian Gulf War,beating an Iraqi military equipped with then-modern armaments. F-117s enabled the simultaneous
takedown of Iraq’s air defenses, without exposing non-stealth aircraft like the B-52, F-111, F-16 andothers to undue risk. Stealth aircraft could achieve desired effects more effectively and efficiently
than their legacy counterparts. On the opening night of Operation Desert Storm, for example,
20 F-117s struck 28 separate aim points, while it took a strike package of over 40 legacy aircraftto hit a single target. Precision and survivability proved invaluable to modern power projection, and havesince been inseparable from the American way of war.3
A quarter century has elapsed since the 1991 victory, however, and technological progress has caught up
with these once uniquely American advantages. Potential adversaries have assiduously studied the Persian
Gulf War and subsequent US interventions, concluding they must adapt their defensive technologies andtechniques. Today, the advent and proliferation of more sophisticated surface-to-air missiles (SAMs),
advanced radars, and sensor systems increasingly endanger US advantage in stealth and precision. When
joined with advanced computer technology, these advances pose serious threats to the US military’s
inventory of strike systems.
In 1991, the SA-2 and SA-6 SAM systems were the common currency of much of the world’s air defenses,
and Soviet-built MiG-25s and MiG-29s had proliferated to former Soviet allies. Today’s air defense systems
now boast “double digit” SAMs such as the SA-10 and the more advanced SA-21, a series of Russian longrange SAMs which are proliferating around the world to countries such as China, Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and Venezuela. These missiles feature modern electronics and sensors, with some variants able tohold targets at risk from up to 250 miles away.4 In the air, modern fighter aircraft, such as the Sukhoi Su30, now perform as well as the leading American fourth generation air superiority fighter, the F-15C Eagle.

2

Robert Work, “The Third US Offset and Its Implications for Partners and Allies, as delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, January
28, 2015, Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.,” http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/606641/the-third-us-offset-strategyand-its-implications-for-partners-and-allies (accessed November 18, 2015).

3David Deptula, "Effects Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare, Defense and Airpower Series," (Arlington, Virginia: Aerospace Education
Foundation, April 2001), 1.

4

S-300P (SA-10 Grumble/SA-20 Gargoyle), MissileThreat.com, George C. Marshall Institute, Arlington, Virginia, April 25, 2013, http://missilethreat.
com/defense-systems/s-300p-sa-10-grumblesa-12-gargoyle/ (accessed November 20, 2015).

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These aircraft are also significantly younger, with far less structural wear. Fifth generation fighters arealso under development in both Russia and China, which will challenge US stealth dominance once
they become operational. These capabilities are expected to proliferate to states around the world, in theyears ahead.5

Source: Jane's All the World's Aircraft
Graphic by Zaur Eylanbekov

Type Sukhoi Su-30
Operators Russia, China, India, Others
Year Entered Service 1996 (Russia)
Capabilitites• Thrust vectoring• AA-10 air to air missiles• Phased array radar

What stealth technology
accomplished for America’s
military advantage in the
1980s and since, hypersonics
could be for the challenges of2020, and beyond.

5

Sukhoi PAK FA

Shenyang Aircraft
Corporation J-31

RussiaChina, export customers

Projected 2017

Projected 2019

• Stealth technology• Internal bays for AA-12 air to
air missiles• Advanced Electronically Scanned
Array radar• Stealth technology• Fly by wire capability• Internal weapons bays

A promising answer to these challenges lies with the maturationof hypersonic weapons—precision standoff munitions that fly
five times beyond the sound barrier. What stealth technology
accomplished for America’s military advantage in the 1980s andsince, hypersonics could be for the challenges of 2020, and beyond.
These weapons will vastly extend the speed and range of precisionattack, dramatically increase the flexibility of airpower, and sharpen
its utility against modern opponents.

US Department of Defense, May 8, 2015, Annual Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments in the People’s Republic of China 2015,
Washington, D.C. http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2015_China_Military_Power_Report.pdf. 55. (accessed November 20,2015).

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Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

The Hypersonic Environment: Supersonic Isn’t Fast EnoughKey to understanding the game-changing potential of hypersonics is seeing how this capability is fundamentally different from even supersonic aviation, and other standoff approaches. Thus, it is necessary to
explore the science.
Aerospace engineers and scientists will nearly always refer to the speed of an aerospace vehicle—an airplane,
spacecraft, or missile—in terms of “Mach number,” relating how fast a vehicle moves relative to the local
speed of sound, or “Mach 1.” Mach 1 is approximately 760 miles per hour at sea level, decreasing toapproximately 660 mph at high altitudes. Speeds below Mach 1 are termed subsonic, while speeds above
Mach 1 to about Mach 5 are termed supersonic. Although there is no fixed definition, flight speeds beyond
Mach 5, are typically termed hypersonic.
Hypersonics involve various kinds of flight vehicles. The first were simply rocket-boosted, following aballistic path, like early military rockets and spacecraft such as Project Mercury. The second were "boost
glide," which use a rocket engine to accelerate to hypersonic speed, then make a gliding return throughthe atmosphere. This is what powered the X-15 transatmospheric research aircraft in the 1960s. The third,
enabled by breakthroughs in air-breathing propulsion such as the scramjet (a supersonic combustion
ramjet) are "boost cruise," which use a rocket to accelerate to hypersonic speed, then sustaining that speedby moving to an air breathing engine and cruising for the remainder of its flight.
Hypersonic flight is very different from even supersonic flight, with intensely hot airflows featuring surface
temperatures on an aircraft running up to thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. Visitors to the National Air andSpace Museum can see how the rigors of hypersonic flight test a hypersonic vehicle, by examining the North
American X-15, or the Apollo Command Module. Both of these vehicles feature heat-tempered nickel alloy
panels and charred ablative heat shield panels, scarred from hypersonic flight.
Though the hypersonic environment is a searing one of extreme temperatures and thermal loadings, thedesign requirements for hypersonic vehicles are generally well understood. Through an established trackrecord of creative design and engineering dating back over six decades, the US has the ability to create boost
glide and boost cruise weapons, and associated air vehicles.
Because of the speed and altitude possible with these vehicles, the practical flight environment extends fromthe mid-stratosphere—approximately 60,000 feet—into space, and from a range of just a few hundred
miles to distances around the globe. For hypersonic flight, leaving the atmosphere is a matter of simple
acceleration. But reentering the atmosphere poses a series of thorny problems involving positioning of the
returning vehicle, its ability to withstand peak reentry loads and temperatures, and its ability to transition
from a blazing-hot reentry to a prosaic terminal descent. These vehicles are essentially human-designed
meteors, pitting engineering ingenuity and skill against nature’s unforgiving stresses and temperatures. Enabling these systems to survive and thrive in this hellish environment are sophisticated on-board computers
informed by a variety of sensors and other instrumentation to furnish crucial guidance and control for thevehicle and its propulsion system.

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At hypersonic speeds, aircraft and other vehicles require protection from potentially destructive melting andstructural burn-throughs, and from flight loadings caused by thermal expansion and structural distortion.
Just a few seconds’ exposure to a hot hypersonic airflow can destroy a conventional aluminum or compositestructure airplane or missile. Hypersonic vehicles require high-temperature materials—nickel alloys, graphitebased composites, and ceramics—coupled with shaping that minimizes the destructive effects of sustained
blowtorch-like heating.
If not adequately designed, as the loss of two DARPA HTV-2 hypersonic research vehicles in 2010 and 2011indicate, hypersonic aerothermodynamic heating can quickly trigger disaster. But advances in the scienceof these problems have occurred in just the last few years. After a series of successful 2013 tests, the Air
Force indicated it is applying engineering lessons from its X-51A Waverider program towards the High
Speed Strike Weapon effort, or HSSW, a concept which service officials hope will demonstrate a successful
hypersonic expendable weapon. Air Force officials said data from X-51A testing would specifically improve
aspects such as guidance, heat resistance, and warhead integration on a future hypersonic weapons program.6

Hypersonics: Great Promise and Potential Threat
Hypersonic strike holds a great deal of potential to transform airpower in the 21st century, and could
revolutionize military affairs by offering more effective, inexpensive, and low-risk approaches to counter
opponents attempting to foil US forces via anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) technology. Hypersonic
weapon advances afford long-term potential to address “pop-up” threats requiring rapid response, threats
often outside the purview of the present US aircraft and munitions inventory.
Specifically, hypersonic weapons will largely solve time and distance challenges that often bedevil lessresponsive weapons, like conventional cruise missiles. The US has made great strides building highly capable
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaisance (ISR), and command and control (C2) networks to enableglobal vigilance across military operations. The introduction of hypersonic weapons now affords the ability
to more thoroughly exploit engagement opportunities with these networks, as it does no good to identify atarget without the means to strike it. The speed of hypersonic weapons allows development of better targeting
solutions, enabling commanders more opportunity to assess targets correctly and accurately, and then act.
The speed of a hypersonic weapon greatly compresses the so-called “find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess”(F2T2EA) process, enabling US commanders the ability to penetrate an opponent’s decision making process,and as a result, rapidly put an adversary on the defensive.
The requirement for hypersonic weapons technology is approaching an inflection point today. Thanks toover seven decades of research and flight testing, the American aerospace community now understands thehypersonic arena better than at any point in modern aviation history.7 But other nations do as well, and arepressing forward with their own programs. If unanswered, these efforts threaten to outpace US advances.
6

Marina Malenic, “USAF Using X-51 Lessons Learned to Weaponize Hypersonic Vehicles,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, May 15, 2015.

7

USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Report on Why and Whither Hypersonics Research in the USAF, SAB-TR-00-03 (Washington, D.C.: HQ USAF, December
2000), 8-9.

8Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

China and Russia areattempting to advance thehypersonics state of theart—doing more designing,
prototyping, testing, andinvesting in newer facilities ...

Challengers have made their intentions very public. Chinese
researchers conducted three high-profile tests of the Wu-14
hypersonic strike vehicle in 2014 alone (with two more flights
revealed in 2015).8 In 2014, Russia also reiterated its plan to test
a new hypersonic weapon by 2020. Open press accounts reveal
China and Russia are attempting to advance the hypersonics
state of the art—doing more designing, prototyping, testing, andinvesting in newer facilities, as well as establishing an educatedcadre of young aerospace engineering professionals who will forma future human capital infrastructure.9

These developments portend severe costs for the loser in this competition. The US not only would cede
decades worth of investment, test, research, and experimentation in this arena, but would also face strategic
vulnerability if other nations field a successful hypersonic weapon first. The United States' investment in
hypersonics research and development is now at risk due to indecision and vacillation. Having pioneered
hypersonic flight, the United States must redouble its efforts to retain its lead in hypersonics.
The US cannot afford to lose this emerging competition. An opponent who could field modern hypersonic
weapons could hold any attacking force at great risk, on land, at sea, and in the air. There are few effective
defenses to this capability. Alan Shaffer, then the acting assistant secretary of defense for research andengineering stated plainly in 2014, “We, the United States, do not want to be the second country tounderstand how to control hypersonics.”

The Practical Reality of Hypersonic Strike
Hypersonic flight today is a practical reality, vice an expensive taxpayer-supported science project. Recent
test success reveals this technology is maturing rapidly, and could be utilized in the near future for longrange strike purposes.
On May 1, 2013, the fourth test mission for the X-51A Waverider air vehicle set a record for the longest everair breathing hypersonic flight to date, traveling more than 230 nautical miles in just over six minutes after
its release from a B-52 at 50,000 feet. Off the coast of Southern California, the X-51’s booster accelerated
the test vehicle to Mach 4.8, before separating. Its supersonic combustion ramjet engine then engaged andpropelled it to Mach 5.1 at 60,000 feet before running out of fuel and splashing into the Pacific Ocean.10
The following September, Air Force Maj Gen Thomas Masiello, commander of the Air Force Research
8

Bill Gertz, “China Conducts Fifth Test of Hypersonic Glide Vehicle,” The Washington Free Beacon, August 21, 2015, http://freebeacon.com/nationalsecurity/china-conducts-fifth-test-of-hypersonic-glide-vehicle/ (accessed November 22, 2015).

9

Daniel Marren, “Why Programs Fail (and, Conversely, Why Programs Prevail)” (White Oak, MD: AFRL Tunnel 9, December 23 2014), 12; Richard P.

10

Staff Report, “X-51 Sets Air Breathing Hypersonic Record,” Air Force Magazine Daily Report, May 6, 2013, http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive/

Hallion, Hypersonic Power Projection (Arlington, VA: Mitchell Institute), 9, 20-23.
Pages/2013/May%202013/May%2006%202013/X-51A-Sets-Air-Breathing-Hypersonic-Record.aspx (accessed November, 2015).

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Hypersonics no longer require
breakthrough technologies nor

Laboratory (AFRL), said the successful tests proved “hypersonics
and scramjets are real,” and could be adapted into standoff weapons
as soon as the early 2020s.11

budget-breaking investment.

Hypersonics no longer require breakthrough technologies norbudget-breaking investment. America has significant experience with operational aspects of hypersonicflight, particularly the engineering knowledge and fabrication of associated materials. The NASA X-15
effort and even the development of US nuclear missile forces pioneered routine hypersonic operations in
aspects of flight years before the X-51A. Building technology to afford an offensive strike platform is anatural evolution of these experiences. New hypersonic military requirements center upon theater-ranging
missiles capable of employment on aircraft, ships, submarines, and mobile land-based launchers. After
decades of research, hypersonic weapons are within a decade of being reality—but the US must first makesome necessary investments.

Hypersonics and Requirements
The pursuit of hypersonic strike is firmly rooted in emerging military requirements. Hypersonic weapons
address a steady decline in the power projection capabilities of the United States and its global partners.
Existing technologies fielded by potential adversaries around the globe are reducing strike options against key
targets. The US must maintain the ability to project decisive combat power simultaneously into crisis regions,in the face of robust opposition. One of the best alternatives to meet these power projection demands isto develop a new generation of air, surface, and sub surface launched hypersonic weapons which could be
released at great distance—outside of the “threat rings” of modern SAMs and modern fighter aircraft.
Hypersonics offer several major combat advantages. They effectively circumvent the challenges of A2/AD
threat environments, and can strike time-sensitive targets anywhere in the world. Hypersonic weapons also
meet the challenge of distance, shrinking flight times to targets, and can evade sophisticated air defenses,
which would intercept weapons such as cruise missiles.
But making the promise of hypersonics a reality requires
policy and budget leaders to adequately set forth consistentobjectives to realize operational capability and fund the US’national hypersonic infrastructure. This means support forcomponent testing to achieve a requisite technology levelapplicable to operational weapons, and initiation of followon flight test demonstration programs which continue thebreakthrough work undertaken with recent programs suchas the X-43 and X-51. If these efforts are supported and11... within a decade the UnitedStates could have a hypersonic
weapon capability in place thatwill definitively deter potential
opponents, hold targets at greaterrisk, and enhance stability in key
regions around the world.

John Tirpak, “Beyond Perpetually Promising,” Air Force Magazine Daily Report, September 17, 2014, http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive/
Pages/2014/September%202014/September%2017%202014/Beyond-Perpetually-Promising.aspx (accessed November, 2015).

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enhanced, within a decade the United States could have a hypersonic weapon capability in place that willdefinitively deter potential opponents, hold targets at greater risk, and enhance stability in key regions
around the world.

Restoring the Edge of America’s Joint Forces
Any discussion of hypersonics’ potential value must include a holistic assessment of America’s current
ability to project decisive combat power. The US must deter potential adversaries, reassure allies, shape key
regions, and project decisive combat power when needed. This requires the ability to project kinetic powerat targets anywhere in the world at any time. This mission is fundamental to preserving America’s global
interests. Failing to secure the long range strike advantage of hypersonics will translate into increased
operational risk, interests surrendered, and increased likelihood of conflict escalation will rise in thedecades ahead.
Over the past 20 years, the US has yet to responsibly recapitalize its aging aerospace forces—most notably,
US Air Force fighter and bomber wings, Navy carrier air wings, Marine aviation assets, and joint service
standoff weapons such as surface and submarine-launched cruise missiles. At the same time, potential
rivals have rapidly upgraded their own capabilities, including defensive and offensive architectures. By any
assessment, America’s ability to project rapid and responsive global power has diminished.
Recent events in Syria, with Russia deploying advanced SAMs to protect its expeditionary forces defending
the Syrian government, show how these A2/AD tools are used to take away potential intervention options.12
Evolving defenses, such as fourth generation and even fifth generation aircraft under development in Russia
and China, are altering the military balance. Modern SAMs coupled with phased-array radars and their
exceptional discrimination, pose a more potent threat to US aircraft. Combined with elements such as
modern infrared sensors, anti-aircraft artillery, and informed by modernized C2 and ISR networks, the air
defense systems of the 21st century are a growing challenge to US power.
The narrowing technology gap has great impact on the military toolkit available to the US in the coming
years. Ground defenses and aircraft are growing the “threat rings” military planners must take into accountwhen examining potential scenarios. More capable SAMs and fighter aircraft force operations from greater
distance, increasing transit time to targets, and shrinking windows to respond to “pop up” threats. Theater
range weapons—such as new ballistic and cruise missiles, and cyber attacks from deep within protected
territories—are themselves posing a time and distance challenge to conventional means of standoff attack.
While these trends are continuing, the US also no longer has aircraft fleets large enough to pursue conflicts
that could involve attrition, a factor taken into account in operations plans prior to the emergence of stealthand precision weapons.

12

Dan Williams, “Russia is Sending Advanced Air Defenses to Syria,” Reuters, September 11, 2015, http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-is-sendingadvanced-air-defenses-to-syria-2015-9 (accessed November, 2015).

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11Source: Jane's
Graphic by Zaur Eylanbekov

Effective maximum surface to air missile ranges, from theSA-2 to the SA-21, as notionally depicted at the Bassel Al
Asad airfield in Latakia, Syria.

Type:
Max Range(miles):

SA-2

SA-6

SA-10

SA-21

27

16

93

268

Source: Jane's Missiles and Rockets
Graphic by Zaur Eylanbekov

The sum of this threat picture has combined into a simple equation in the 21st century—distance + time
+ defenses × age = true capability. Older assets, often having to stand off at great distance, are increasingly
unable to project necessary power against targets, many of which are mobile. Anemic modernization overthe past three decades has yielded high-demand, low-density fleets of America’s most capable combat
aircraft for the toughest operational problems, the F-22 and B-2. Both these capable assets lack the capacity
in numbers to project decisive power simultaneously in multiple combat scenarios.

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In the near term, hypersonic weapons are well-suited to address this challenging situation. Successes inhypersonic research—real world live tests of vehicles surviving hot hypersonic airflows, not just simulations
and experiments—have produced increased confidence from key leaders and advocates that practical
weapons which can operate at speeds over Mach 5 are feasible, and in mass if needed. The November
2011 test of the Army's Advanced Hypersonic Weapon constituted a notable step forward toward future
hypersonic battlefield and theater systems, and indicated the time has arrived for weaponization of
hypersonics for national defense. Recent work with NASA’s X-43 Mach 10 vehicle and the USAF’s X-51
WaveRider tests have demonstrated the near term practical potential for making this technology operational,
while affording needed attention and support from the Department of Defense. The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and USAF are now teamed on their own follow-on programs, butneed continued support to see success.

What Hypersonics Offer
Hypersonic weapons offer several advantages for America’s combat forces and those of its global friends
and partners, facilitating operations in difficult threat environments, holding targets at greater risk, andenabling the striking power of legacy air assets.
Hypersonics afford unprecedented rapid reach: The driving reason why the US and its potential
adversaries are pursuing this capability is its potential to shrink the “time to target” window. At over amile per second or even faster, a hypersonic missile is, at a minimum, six times swifter than a conventional
cruise missile. This enables a more effective intelligence and targeting cycle when dealing with targets that
previously could not be held at risk for long, due to weapons constraints.
Hypersonics afford global target access: A theater-ranging hypersonic missile will reach a target 1,000
miles distant within 17 minutes or less.13 Once hypersonic weapons are fielded, the lessons from theiroperations could inform future efforts. A hypersonic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)
system could one day reach an area of interest faster than a satellite could be repositioned, and overflying
contested airspace with a great degree of survivability.
Hypersonics provide “fourth dimension” effects: Hypersonic warfare is, in effect, time warfare. A
hypersonic weapon compresses a foe’s decision-making window, effectively enabling the hypersonicattacker to get inside an adversary’s command, control, and battle management cycle. This will go a long
way towards solidifying US command and control superiority in numerous potential scenarios, as a result.
Hypersonics offset air defenses: Hypersonic weapons counter adversary air defenses in two ways. First, byenabling older fourth generation aircraft to attack targets in heavily defended areas, and, second, enabling
survival of the weapon itself as it seeks the target.
13

USAF Scientific Advisory Board, Why and Whither, 64-65. By definition, a hypersonic weapon moves at approximately one mile a second or faster.
In 20 minutes, it can reach at least 1,200 miles.

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Over time, air attackers have overcome increasingly sophisticated air defenses, but often at high costs in lost
airmen and aircraft. Advances in electronic warfare (EW), active jamming of radars, the development of
infrared countermeasures, and the maturation of stealth were driven by combat experiences going back to theVietnam War, and have proved their value in US conflicts since the 1991 Gulf War.
But the capability gap today has narrowed. Hypersonic weapons can be added to the military toolkit in orderto ensure the survivability of strike packages. composed of aircraft of varying capability and stealthiness.
By enabling hypersonic weapons strikes at range, older and more vulnerable aircraft that otherwise
could not operate in such high-threat areas have renewed potency and lethality — and modern US fifth
generation aircraft would greatly multiply their own lethality. This radically complicates an enemy’s defensive
calculations, increasing the reach and lethality of the US’ entire combat air fleet.
Finally, Israel’s experience with the Iron Dome missile defense system has proved advances in computational
technology, sensors, guidance, and small rocketry have enabled highly effective mobile SAM systems thatcan discriminate between incoming transonic and low-supersonic rockets, and can target missiles posing athreat to defenders.14 This development has implications for future air defense technology. The Iron Dometechnology can be expected to eventually proliferate to other nations, and will erode the value of traditional“fly-over” strike weapons, such as subsonic cruise missiles. A hypothetically similar system could target US
precision-guided weapons aimed at potential adversaries. A hypersonic weapon, however, with its higher
approach speed and terminal maneuvering, could evade these defenses, restoring the balance of advantage tothe attacker.

Hypersonics and the Sensor-to-Shooter Factor
One of the key advantages hypersonic weapons will leverage is their potential to compress the time it takes
for a weapon to travel to its target, redefining engagement opportunities and allowing more operational
flexibility. The reduction of so-called “shooter-to-target” time in an age of increasingly more lethal andmobile weapons is critical to preserving military power. US efforts to perform targeted strikes on terroristgroups and their leadership have embodied the challenge of weapon transit time in the recent past, as thesegroups have rarely used fixed bases of operation and often vary the location and duration of their meetingsin order to complicate targeting efforts.
America’s early experience with the Al Qaeda organization, in the years before the 2001 attacks, revealed
the effect of this dynamic in action. The extended flight times of existing standoff strike weapons risked lost
opportunity against even moderately distant targets, as just one fateful experience from the 1990s revealed.
A subsonic cruise missile attack in August 1998 against a meeting of terrorist leaders failed to kill Al Qaeda
head Osama bin Laden, who reputedly left the meeting just prior to the missiles’ impact.15 Had hypersonic14

Yaakov Katz, “Iron Dome Successful in Downing 75 Percent of Rockets,” The Jerusalem Post, December 30, 2011, http://www.jpost.com/Defense/

15

Bill Gertz, “Inside the Ring: Missing bin Laden,” The Washington Times, September 18, 2008, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/

Iron-Dome-successful-in-downing-75-percent-of-rockets (accessed November 17, 2015).
sep/18/inside-the-ring/?page=all (accessed November 19, 2015).

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missiles been employed, bin Laden would likely have been killed in the strike, potentially affecting thechain of events that led to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
But high value terrorist targets are only one problem set addressed by hypersonic weapons. Advanced
mobile missiles are a serious, rapidly proliferating regional threat featuring profound targeting challenges.
Currently, intelligence may detect the movement and launch preparation of a mobile missile, but the US
lacks strike options of sufficient speed to eliminate the missle and launcher. The performance of PATRIOT
air defense missile systems in the Gulf War of 1991, deployed to intercept Scud-Bs, revealed whenadversary missiles are at or beyond their highest point in flight, even with a successful intercept the missile
debris falls on ally territory. A hypersonic standoff weapon could strike the launcher with minutes to spareprior to launch.16 This adds an important layer of defense, and an intimidating threat to any potential
aggressor. A hypersonic scramjet cruise missile, for example, has approximately an eight-to-one advantage
in speed over a subsonic cruise missile.17 In the time a subsonic missile flies 100 miles, a hypersonic missile
could go 800. Because of this speed and reach, targeting intelligence collected from a variety of systems—
surface, airborne, space, and even human intelligence (HUMINT)—are rendered more exploitable.

Source: Jane's Missiles and Rockets
Graphic by Zaur Eylanbekov

Approximate distance traveled ten minutes after launch of anaerial long range subsonic cruise missile next to a notional
long range hypersonic missile.

16

US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, Why and Whither, Fig. 25, “Notional Deployment Launch Timelines for TBM and Associated AHM,” 46.

17

The subsonic cruise missile operates at speeds between Mach .75 and .85. A hypersonic missile would penetrate at speeds of at least Mach 5, andmore typically at Mach 6 or higher.

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In the era of subsonic or even short-range supersonic munitions, such detailed information often becomes
non-actionable, simply because targets are too far away or require a time-constrained window of attack.
Introducing hypersonic weapons into the portfolio of a planner and targeteer could have great implications
across potential operations.
By increasing the utility of intelligence to build actionable targets, military commanders would have a morediverse pallet of targeting options, enabled by hypersonics. Locating, engaging, closing with, and destroying
the opponent has always defined successful military operations. In modern campaigns, this unfolds as thefind, fix, target, track, engage, and assess process—or the “F2T2EA chain.” Advanced ISR and C2 systems
have evolved and improved the US military’s ability to find, fix, target, and track a host of potential aim
points. But the tools of engagement—gravity bombs, short-range standoff missiles, and subsonic cruise
missiles, among others—are becoming less decisive as more opponents begin to field modernized versionsof these weapons themselves.
With its military advantage eroding, the US’ command
flexibility and freedom of action in operations is increasingly
affected. Hypersonic weapons would reverse this trend. A
commander who possesses hypersonic strike capability canchoose to exercise a wider range of options, with the speed of
hypersonics allowing more reflective decision-making, insteadof reflexive decisions driven by tight windows of opportunity.

With its military advantage
eroding, the US’ command
flexibility and freedom of action
in operations is increasingly
affected. Hypersonic weapons
would reverse this trend.

Hypersonics and Target Sets
The speed and flexibility afforded by the development of hypersonic weapons will go a long way towards
addressing the challenge of targeting and hitting multiple aim points.
Hypersonic strike weapons are key to addressing the number one threat to future air campaigns—integrated
enemy air defenses and counter-air operations. An operational hypersonic weapon would confoundadversary investment in an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), in particular those built around older
legacy aircraft and short-range anti-radar missiles. These IADS would be overwhelmed by missiles travelingto their targets at hypersonic speed, unable to effectively track or target them. Hypersonic air-to-surface
missiles would effectively target radars, launch sites for aircraft and SAMs, command and control facilities,
and other elements of defense networks. These targets pose extreme risk to the vast majority of legacy US
aircraft and the present standoff munition inventory.
Hypersonic weapons could effectively engage enemy air assets on the ground, before they could engage US
attackers. A US-led air campaign, equipped with hypersonic weapons, would target airfields, destroying
hardened shelters, support facilities, and other infrastructure. These initial strikes would open an opponent
to attack by other assets, such as older nonstealth strike aircraft. Hypersonic weapons could effectively
prosecute command, control, and communications (C3) points, key leadership, and key ground, naval,
and maritime targets.
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Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

Hypersonic strike weapons could more effectively engage high value targets, such as weapons of mass
destruction or anti-satellite weapons threatening US and allied space networks. The speed and reach of
hypersonic strike could preempt the launch of a theater ballistic missile, for example, as well as render an
ASAT (anti-satellite weapon) site ineffective before it could engage US orbital assets.
Hypersonic weaponry could also address the challenge of hardened and buried targets. To evade US
airpower, potential adversaries have attempted to “go deep,” in many cases, putting key elements ofcommand and control and air defense assets in hardened shelters or fortified facilities dug in geographysuch as mountains.18
In the 1991 Gulf War, the challenge of hitting Iraqi deep bunkers forced the rapid development of thenon-standoff penetrating GBU-28.19 Today, a hypersonic weapon is ideally suited for attack on deep hardtargets such as nuclear laboratories, manufacturing sites, storage and processing facilities, and other highvalue targets. The speed of a hypersonic weapon gives it great utility to strike these hardened targets. With
decades of experimentation and testing data on penetrating warheads amassed, there is strong potential
for the development of a penetrating hypersonic strike warhead in the near future to address just thischallenge. 20

Hypersonics and the Future of Joint Operations
The effective development anddeployment of hypersonic
weapons would have vast
implications for future joint
and combined air operations,increasing survivability andenhancing the lethality of thefull spectrum of air assets.

The effective development and deployment of hypersonic weapons
would have vast implications for future joint and combined air
operations, increasing survivability and enhancing the lethality of
the full spectrum of air assets. The range and speed of a hypersonic
weapon renders any launch platform largely invulnerable toopposing IADS or coastal defenses. Bombers, remotely piloted
aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft, other special purpose attackers,
and surface vessels and submarines could loiter hundreds of miles
away, holding enemy targets hostage, and destroying them, if
necessary, in minutes.

Though air launched hypersonic weapons are certainly within the natural domain of the Air Force, theirdevelopment and utilization is consistent with the requirements of modern joint service operations. Aftermaturation, there are conceivable applications across the services. US Army mobile launchers could firedeep-attack boost-glide rounds, US Navy ships could be equipped with hypersonic missiles for fleet attack
or fleet defense, and submarines would enhance their lethality with faster hypersonic strike missiles. Sea and18

Alan Vick, Air Base Attacks and Defensive Counters: Historical Lessons and Future Challenges, (RAND Corporation: Santa Monica, California),

19

Richard P. Hallion, Storm Over Iraq: Airpower and the Gulf War, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 243, 306.

20

USAF SAB, Why and Whither, Appendix G: “Physical Considerations for Hard Target Penetrators,” G-1.

September 2015, 51.

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land–based aircraft could readily launch hypersonic air-to-surface and air-to-air weapons. Just as the Joint
Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is synonymous with US military aviation operations today, so, too, shouldbe the hypersonic munitions of tomorrow.
Hypersonic weapons stand to increase the survivability and power projection options of the US military,across platforms. In particular, these weapons could preserve the security and effectiveness of naval aircraft
carriers and surface battle groups, in an era where anti-ship missiles and A2/AD tools are increasingly
putting naval assets at risk. Combined with joint force airpower, hypersonic weapons afford America
the opportunity to conduct globally ranging operations with a strong degree of assurance against themost sophisticated opponents. Whereas in the past stealth and standoff subsonic cruise missiles were
employed as force multipliers, now hypersonic weapons can hold targets at risk via avenues which cannot
be adequately defended. These tools will help technology prevent the needless loss of life and materiel inthe most challenging potential future conflict scenarios.
One does not have to look too far back to see how the military balance could be altered permanently
by introducing hypersonic weapons into the air warfare toolkit. In the 1991 Gulf War, when the US led
coalition flew into what was dubbed the most lethal air defense network ever devised, the ratio of electronic
warfare “suppressors” to strike aircraft for non-stealth attackers was four to one.21 In conflicts since, fromOperation Allied Force over Serbia to Operation Inherent Resolve over Syria, the options and flexibility
presented through modern stealth aircraft have ensured success in the opening phase of every conflict andhelped ensure freedom of action for American forces.
Today, hypersonic weapons stand to extend this joint force dominance into the 21st century, by providing
a credible and effective answer to the toughest threats arrayed by potential adversaries.

The Situation We Face
Today, the United States is losing its technological edge in defense due to a combination of factors: theglobalization of markets and ideas, the rise of near peer and peer nations, and the growing ability of even small
businesses and non-governmental organizations around the world to invest in and capitalize on advanced
technologies. A lack of focused science and technology budgets and programs to rapidly advance viable,
revolutionary hypersonics technology to near term product transition is adding to this dynamic.
As a result, our adversaries have made great improvements in military technology over the past 20 years.
These include radars, terminal seekers, SAM networks, fighter aircraft with advanced air-to-air missiles,
electronic warfare countermeasures, and command and control networks which integrate these tools into anincreasingly difficult defensive shield, raising the risk of loss in both materiel and personnel rarely considered
in conflicts since the first Gulf War.

21

18

Hallion, Storm Over Iraq, 249.

Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

The US continues to improve its own capabilities
in all these areas, but at increasing risk andwithout the confidence of success we have grownaccustomed to in the modern era of military
overmatch. The successful fielding of hypersonic
weapons could provide a new asymmetricadvantage to the United States, by allowing
our military forces and allies to penetrate anddefeat advanced threats at extremely high speed,enhancing our ability to deny adversaries theability to effectively react to protect their combat
capabilities, or to use them against us.
Though hypersonics, in particular hypersonicstrike weapon technology, is ripe for exploitation
as a theater and global strike game changer, it is not
yet clear whether America will own that advantage
first. Though the US is investing in hypersonics
and their maturation, it is not on a guaranteed
path to near term success. Clear and consistentcommitment to a disciplined plan to address
remaining technology challenges has yet to emerge
from America’s recent efforts in this field.
Hypersonic initiatives over the past few decades
have shown great promise. However, the sporadic
occurrence of programs has hindered attaining desired capabilities in an efficient, rapid fashion. Everytime a program ends, teams disperse, knowledge
is lost, and new efforts must begin from scratch toregain momentum. Future efforts will only succeed
if executed with consistent policy guidance, stable
technical specifications, and dependable funding
streams.
Source: Jay Miller, The X-Planes; Richard Hallion, The Hypersonic
Revolution, Vol. 1; Richard Hallion and Michael Gorn, On the Frontier:
Experimental Flight at NASA Dryden; Allen Li, “Space Transportation,”
GAO-01-826T (2001); Andrew Butrica, Single Stage to Orbit.

Though the US has amassed a great deal ofknowledge and expertise in hypersonics, it has thus
far not yet realized its practical military advantage.
The US has completed several complex, risky,and overly expensive hypersonics programs that
more often than not have fallen short of success,such as the X-3022, the X-3323, and the Blackswift
reusable hypersonic test flight vehicle.24 These
programs were often very ambitious, such as theBlackswift, which attempted a complex combined
turbojet and ramjet/scramjet engine to power asurvivable, remore piloted hypersonic aircraft.
The vision, however, was unmatched with the22“X-30,” Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/x30.htm (accessed November 17, 2015)23“X-33,” Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/x33.htm (accessed November 17, 2015)24

Ward Carroll, “DARPA Cancels Hypersonic Blackswift,” DefenseTech.org, October 14, 2008, http://defensetech.org/2008/10/14/darpa-cancelshypersonic-blackswift/ (accessed November 17, 2015)

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appropriate level of funding to take on all these technology challenges at once, and the project floundered.25
Other efforts have afforded success, but gains were not cemented with follow-on incremental investmentin programs of record, such as the X-43 and the just concluded X-51 Waverider tests. This has proved
frustrating for maturation efforts, as the science and technology teams with the freshest knowledge anddevelopmental lessons from these efforts are disbanded, and moved on to other projects. The path tosuccess would be better served by tackling challenges incrementally, which is why it is important to focus
on developing workable hypersonic weaponry before tackling the larger and more complex challenge ofhypersonic aircraft.
Since solving the hypersonics puzzle is about recognizing and integrating several different technologies, there
is a need for a clear vision for creating a path to bring these disparate tools together. This has yet to bearticulated in policy or legislation. The result is Congress and defense decision makers have failed to recognize
the real and impressive successes which have occurred in the last several years with regards to hypersonics
research and development, and few outside of the aerospace and defense research community recognize orappreciate that the US stands on the cusp of a breakthrough in practical weaponization of this technology.
At the present rate, the United States is roughly four to five years from flying its next air-breathing hypersonicvehicle, the Hypersonic Air Breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), which will incorporate lessons learned
from the successful X-51 Air Force-NASA-Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-aerospaceindustry team. This effort will attempt to achieve what is known as Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6.
This means building a representative model or prototype system that is successfully tested in a relevant or
simulated operational environment, a milestone that will help bridge the gap towards weaponization. But
this program must remain on schedule if it hopes to succeed.26
Meanwhile, competitors are advancing rapidly—designing, prototyping, and testing, new and capablefacilities for research on this field, and establishing an educated cadre of young hypersonic professionals
who will be able to develop these tools further in the years ahead.27 If these nations succeed in the race tofield this technology, the US risks falling behind in our ability to solve the A2/AD problem, and thus in
our ability to prevail in a future confrontation.

25

Ibid.

26

Stew Magnuson, “Hypersonic Weapons Can Defeat the Tyranny of Time, Distance,” National Defense Magazine, November 2014; Maj Gen Thomas
Masiello, (Commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio), author phone conversation, Alexandria, Virginia, November 3,
2015. Masiello noted the next flight would be around 2019 to 2020.

27

Bradley Perrett and Guy Morris, “China’s Scramjet Claim Puzzles US Researchers,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, Nov 9, 2015,
http://aviationweek.com/technology/china-s-scramjet-claim-puzzles-us-hypersonic-researchers (accessed Novermber 17, 2015)20

Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

The Path Forward: Recommendations
To make real progress, the time has come for decision-makers to lay out a consistent and disciplined
technology path to close the remaining gaps; and foster the conditions for a concept of operations todevelop; and allow the test and deployment of hypersonic weapons that could give America’s air, sea, andland forces an assymetric advantage.
A satisfactory path forward is more achievable than some may believe. This study makes recommendations
in five key focus areas.
First, the US Congress and defense leaders must understand the state and near term potential of
hypersonics, and commit to a steady path to practical weapons capabilities.
Second, the Department of Defense (DOD) must establish a realistic acquisition strategy and guidea practical requirements assessment and development process for concepts of operation, science andtechnology, research and development, testing, and life cycle management activities.
Third, DOD and aerospace industry must conduct the remaining technology maturation efforts tobring required subsystems to sufficient readiness to begin actual weapon development with high confidence.
Fourth, DOD and industry must ensure the construction and refurbishment of proper test facilities
and range infrastructure and provide resources to support this effort.
Finally, we must create and sustain an educated, motivated cadre of hypersonics professionals to keep
our nation on the leading edge of this field.

Understanding and Commitment to Hypersonics
By recognizing the United States is losing its technological edge, we will be able to invigorate deliberate
efforts to maintain its position at or ahead of rising competitors. This technological edge has real world
implications, as it will ensure success in future confrontations with adversaries who have realized
improvements in systems such as air defense, command and control, and combat aircraft. These weapons
will give a new asymmetric advantage to US forces in future conflicts, by enhancing the ability to prosecutetime sensitive targets and penetrate A2/AD capabilities utilizing the high speed of hypersonic weapons.
Hypersonics are not only an important aerospace technology, but also an inevitable step in the developmentof military aerospace technology, and the United States is not the only country that understands thistrend. This fact must be tempered with the knowledge that potential competitors realize the advantage
hypersonics pose as well, and are advancing rapidly with their own design, prototyping, and testing efforts
to mature hypersonic capabilities, by investing in new facilities, as well as human capital in their respective

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scientific and research communities.28 This raises the urgency for the US to commit to a disciplined
program to develop and deploy hypersonic technology, and the need to communicate effectively withpotential supporters and decision-makers about the benefits of this path, and the risks to not taking it.

A Hypersonics Acquisition Strategy
To ensure success, Congress, DOD, and decision-makers must develop appropriate policy guidance anda concept of operations (CONOPS) for moving forward, based on maturing incremental, realistic andachievable technologies leading to practical hypersonic weapons. They must also avoid overly aggressive
projects that try to “solve it all at once.” Equally important, each increment should tie to the primary goal,and each project should be followed up with a technology transition to useful capability.
This study proposes an approach that would first develop an air-launched medium range hypersonicstrike weapon in the 2020s; a more-capable strike/ISR weapon in the 2030s; and an eventual goal of apersistent, reusable hypersonic strike/ISR aircraft in the 2040s.
Requirements development should be accelerated now, and be a multi-service effort. This should include
an assessment of the A2/AD environment and the CONOPS for using hypersonic weapons in a varietyof realistic scenarios ranging from isolated time-critical targets to integrated theater engagements. Theseshould be tested via aggressive joint modeling, simulation, and wargaming.
While the relationships between NASA, DARPA and the military services have been successful and should
be continued, the time has arrived for the Air Force to take the lead in developing and transitioning
the technologies required for weaponization. USAF, more than any other service, serves as the home of
the majority of the US military’s collective knowledge, lessons learned, and human capital related to theresearch and development of hypersonics, and is the best situated to realize concrete results if appropriate
support and direction is applied. The Navy also has great benefit to gain from operational hypersonics,
as theater ballistic missile defense is a vital concern to the future viability of carrier groups. Operator
involvement, from the Air Force, Navy, and across the joint force, is key to developing practical operational
hypersonic capabilities and must better direct future investment.
The Air Force Research Laboratory has identified hypersonics as a game-changing technology, and the Air
Force’s most recent strategy document supports the contention that this technology will have enormous
effects across mission areas over the coming decades.29 Project efforts must show commitment to pushing
the edge forward, towards this vision.

28“China, India and Russia Have Supersonic Cruise Missiles and are Nearing Hypersonic Cruise Missiles,” Missile Threat.com, March 23, 2015, http://
missilethreat.com/china-india-and-russia-have-supersonic-cruise-missiles-and-are-nearing-hypersonic-cruise-missiles/; “Focus on HypersonicReusable Cruise Missile, Says Scientist,” The New Indian Express, August 9, 2015, http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/
Focus-on-Hypersonic-Reusable-Cruise-Missile-Says-Scientist/2015/08/09/article2965112.ece. (accessed November 17, 2015)

29

22

Department of the Air Force, Air Force Future Operating Concept: A View of the Air Force in 2035, Washington, D.C., September, 2015, 30.

Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

A tangible way to ensure this is to establish a program office reporting to the assistant secretary of
the Air Force for acquisition. Second, the service must establish a competitive hypersonic weapons
development philosophy, to fund at least two teams through preliminary design review. This will ensure
the United States establishes a viable hypersonic technology industry with emphasis on varied design
approaches. Downsizing these efforts too early would limit technology maturation efforts, and increase
future costs if there is no incentive for competition.

Technology Maturation
A proper approach to near-term hypersonic weapons development requires focusing on a finite number ofinterrelated technology efforts. We support the approach advocated by the US Air Force Scientific Advisory
Board in their 2014 study, Technology Readiness for Hypersonic Vehicles. Specifically worth noting, the board
argues the Air Force should:
1. Make the investments needed to close the remaining technical gaps for hypersonic tactical strikeweapons to ensure all critical sub-systems reach TRL 6 no later than 2020 with a focus on seeker/seeker
integration, terminal guidance and maneuverability, and aero-shell materials for hypersonic boost glide
concepts.
Also, the board states, the Air Force should:
3. Explore enhanced target lethality munitions concepts that leverage the high-terminal velocity ofhypersonic strike weapons.
Long term, the technology maturation plan should also address technologies required for follow-on
capabilities that will sustain our strategic edge. A list of hypersonic study areas, sought for a 2015 aeronautics
conference, includes topics worthy of focus and investment. These include design and capability of vehicles
and their missions, internal cooling and thermal management, sensor operations, options for propulsion
systems such as ramjets and scramjets, control (surfaces, flight control algorithms, navigation, and guidance),
power, materials and structures (metals and composites, signatures, flexibility, and heat resistance), as well as
test and evaluation requirements, modeling, instrumentation, and test operations.30 Additional areas of study
to ensure successful weapons programs include sensors, communications, terminal guidance technologies,
and hypersonic warhead design and integration.

Test Facilities and Range Infrastructure
Congress and DOD must also adequately support continued operation and upgrading of the national
hypersonic technology infrastructure, particularly unique test tools and research facilities for undertaking
both ground-based and full-flight testing and research.

30

AIAA, “20th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference,
Call for Papers.” https://www.aiaa.org/Hypersonics2015CFP/?terms=%22international%20space%20planes%20and%20hypersonic%20systems%20
and%20technologies%20conference%22 (accessed November 16, 2015).

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Critical hypersonic test facilities include the Hypervelocity Wind
Tunnel Nine at White Oak, Maryland, operated by the Air
adequately support continued
Force; the NASA Eight-Foot High Temperature Tunnel (8FT
operation and upgrading of theHTT) at Langley Research Center, Virginia, operated by NASA,and the assortment of wind tunnels and ground testing facilities
national hypersonic technology
located at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC),
infrastructure ...
at Arnold AFB, Tennessee. These national assets are periodicallyendangered by shortsighted policies which measure facility worth based on hourly usage rates rather thanprovision of critical test and development knowledge. This approach requires facilities to be paid for by
the programs using them, thus driving the program costs up sharply, driving program customers away,
and increasing the cost per remaining customer, resulting in a budgetary “death spiral.” The nation must
commit to maintaining these facilities and funding the research programs that require these assets.

Congress and DOD must also

Critical range infrastructure includes both overland ranges (such as the Edwards Air Force Base/China
Lake R-2508 complex in California, the Utah Test & Training Range, and the White Sands Missile
Range in New Mexico) and the overwater ranges necessary for long-range hypersonic testing (these include
the Western Test Range in the Pacific Ocean, the Eastern Test Range off the US Atlantic Coast, andthe Eglin Air Force Base Gulf Test Range in the Gulf of Mexico). Issues that must be addressed include
establishing airspace procedures for hypersonic testing (clearing shipping from test zones, for example)
and maintaining the control transmitters, tracking radars, infrared and photographic sensors, and dataacquisition receivers necessary for flight-test activities. Our nation’s test range infrastructure has been
neglected for several decades. Though this trend has recently begun to reverse, we need to ensure that thetest range infrastructure necessary for hypersonic testing is ready when needed.

Cadre of Educated, Motivated Hypersonic Professionals
There are a number of ways to support the field of hypersonics as an area of study for America’s scientists andengineers. These include current efforts at developing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) programs as early as elementary school, establishing and funding hypersonics-related courses inaeronautical, mechanical, and chemical engineering departments at universities, offering scholarships toour brightest students, and funding our current hypersonics experts to serve as adjunct professors.
However, there is one obstacle to developing a cadre of hypersonics professionals for this country that, until
eliminated, will risk failure. The US government and industry must establish a steady, viable, continuous
hypersonics research and development program, with specific goals to produce a range of hypersonic capabilities for the United States.
The US must stop smothering success by disbanding and dispersing hypersonics experts to other fields following project termination—a common theme through several of the aborted experimental programs ofyears past. By leveraging this talent, we will cultivate core expertise, build the motivation to join the field,
and sustain the momentum to achieve self-sufficiency. Given the threat of failure, our nation requires no less.

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Conclusion:
Hypersonics—The Right Decision
Recognizing the impossibility of being able to defend the United States from attack by any means, ournation has relied on our ability to deter and defeat our adversaries by holding their own territories, militaries
and critical infrastructure at risk. Our continued capability to do so in the future is strongly dependent on
our ability to penetrate our enemies’ air defense networks. Recent advances in A2/AD capabilities put our
military strike forces at considerable risk, and will increasingly do so in the next decade.
Hypersonic weapons provide an asymmetric advantage for our military, bolstering deterrence and, if needbe, fostering success if we are forced to take the fight to an enemy.
Hypersonic technologies are remarkably close to maturity. The US government and industry must commit
to sustained, steady hypersonic Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) efforts leading
to technology transition and programs designed to improve our combat capability. Those efforts must be
driven by focused, achievable weapons programs providing our military steadily improving capabilities
over the next few decades. It is time to break the old habits of overly aggressive, expensive failures whichlack follow-ups to success. Government and military leaders with vision will need to work with the service
laboratories, industry, and academia to achieve these goals.
Hypersonics technologies and weapons are both vitally important and inevitable. Congress, DOD,
and the aerospace industry must ensure the United States secures the hypersonic technology advantage,
and captures the associated military advantage to protect its interests for decades to come.

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