Washington: After a lengthy delay as the US Army and Navy struggled to test the round, the Army will field its long-range hypersonic weapon to the first unit by the end of fiscal 2025, a defence official confirmed in a statement.
The Army had planned to field the live, ground-launched hypersonic rounds to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state by the fall of 2023. But the milestone continued to be pushed back after several aborted tests in 2023 due to challenges at the range, related not to the round, but the process of firing up the missile for launch.
Testing the all-up round was considered critical to ensure the system was safe, effective and ready for fielding, said then-Army acquisition chief Doug Bush.
The US is in a race to field the capability and develop systems to defend against hypersonic missiles. China and Russia are actively developing and testing hypersonic weapons.
The Army conducted an end-to-end successful flight test of its hypersonic missile at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii in May 2024, which put the initial fielding to the first unit closer on the horizon.
The Army and Navy completed another successful all-up round test in December at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, of what the services call the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, or C-HGB. The test provided additional confidence to move forward with the program.
“This test builds on several flight tests in which the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved hypersonic speed at target distances and demonstrates that we can put this capability in the hands of the warfighter,” then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a Pentagon statement at the time of the test.
The two services jointly developed the glide body. The Army will launch its version, which it calls the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW, from a mobile ground platform. The Navy’s version, dubbed Conventional Prompt Strike, will be launched from ships.
Hypersonic weapons are capable of flying faster than Mach 5 — or more than 3,836 miles per hour — and can manoeuvre between varying altitudes, making them difficult to detect. The C-HGB is made up of the weapon’s warhead, guidance system, cabling and thermal protection shield.
While the plan to field the weapon to the US Army has taken nearly two years longer than planned, Army officials have been quick to point out that missile development programs typically take about 10 years. The LRHW program is only just beyond the five-year mark.
The Army has worked with Leidos’ Dynetics for years to build the industrial base for the C-HGB that will be used by both the ground service and the Navy, as the domestic private sector has never built a hypersonic weapon.
The service also separately produced launchers, trucks, trailers and the battle operations center necessary to put together the first weapon battery. Lockheed Martin is the weapon system integrator for the Army’s hypersonic capability that will be launched from a mobile truck.
In preparation for receiving the all-up rounds, the Army completed its delivery of the first hypersonic weapon capability — minus the rounds — to the Multi-Domain Task Force unit at JBLM two days ahead of its end-of-fiscal 2021 fielding deadline. The unit has been training on the system since the delivery.
