📋 Tender Overview
The challenges of the hypersonic era in military operations are immense. But so are the abilities of innovators who work together to solve them.That was the message when Wes Kremer president of Raytheon Missiles Defense a Raytheon Technologies business spoke to investors about how teams are working across the company to solve the myriad science and engineering problems that come with developing and defending against hypersonics generally defined as weapons that fly at speeds of Mach 5 or greater.We have to go faster. We also have to go farther. We have to be able to detect threats at longer distances. We have to be able to target at longer distances. We have to be able to close kill chains at longer distances Kremer said using the military term for the process of defeating a target. We have to be able to do that across multiple domains. How we work across domains and how we solve those types of problems is one of the true synergies that we have in this business.Here are some of the ways colleagues across Raytheon Technologies with their deep expertise in areas including heat management propulsion missile development and surface- and space-based sensing are combining novel problem-solving approaches with decades of institutional knowledge to give the U.S. military and allied forces an advantage in the era of hypersonic military operations.Hypersonic weapons by definition are about speed. They fly at a minimum of 3800 mph and thats where the engineering challenges begin.The biggest one is the heat caused by friction as the air passes over the fast-moving vehicle. Many materials cant survive that kind of thermal stress. More heat-resistant materials tend to be heavy very expensive or both. Using them solves one problem but creates others A heavier airframe needs more propulsion to reach speed which requires a more powerful engine and more fuel which adds weight and increases cost.Experts at Raytheon Technologies have been working for years to overcome those heat problems and today theyre applying that knowledge to hypersonics. For example Raytheon Missiles Defense is collaborating with Collins Aerospace another Raytheon Technologies business to explore the use of advanced materials such as those that protect engine coverings brake assemblies and other parts of an aircraft from high temperatures to help solve the heat-management problems that come with hypersonic flight.Collins has been working with Raytheon Missiles Defense on hypersonic solutions since the two became sister businesses under Raytheon Technologies. Now collaborating is not only easier its an imperative under the companys strategy to use technologies and knowledge from one business to the benefit of another.Then of course theres the matter of making the airframe go that fast in the first place. The U.S. Department of Defense has stated it wants not only boost-glide hypersonics which are boosted by rockets into the very upper edge of the atmosphere but also scramjet-powered hypersonics which use the fast-moving air around them to provide oxygen for propulsion.Raytheon Technologies is working with the U.S. military to strengthen its hypersonic strike capability. In June 2021 the company received a 33 million U.S. Air Force contract to develop a solid-rocket boosted air-breathing hypersonic conventional cruise missile that can be launched from existing fighter or bomber aircraft. This initiative is part of the initial phase of the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment or SCIFiRE a cooperative program with Australia to develop hypersonic capabilities.The company is also working on an offensive system called the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept or HAWC under a 2019 teaming agreement between the former Raytheon Company and Northrop Grumman. They are integrating Northrop Grummans scramjet combustors into Raytheon Technologies air-breathing hypersonic weapons.Part of the difficulty in defending against hypersonic weapons is that apart from their speed and range theyre also extraordinarily maneuverable. One approach to countering that combination is to build defenses in layers with a variety of sensors on land at sea in the air and in space to detect and track targets and effectors such as kinetic and non-kinetic weapons to neutralize the threat.The first opportunity to defeat a hypersonic missile attack is before it happens an idea known in military terms as left of launch. Part of Raytheon Technologies approach in that area is the use of electronic warfare and directed energy such as high-powered microwaves that can jam and disable offensive systems.Seeing a threat is key to defeating it said Erin Kocourek senior director of hypersonic requirements and capabilities at Raytheon Missiles Defense.We simply dont have enough ships and islands to put enough surface-based radars to track everything Kocourek said. Maneuverable hypersonic vehicles can fly around our current radars search fences.Accordingly the business is upgrading its surface radars with gallium nitride technology to enhance range and increase detection and discrimination for 360-degree sensing.Were also leveraging the lessons learned that weve gained from our efforts in developing offensive capabilities as we develop our defensive systems Kocourek said. There are a lot of commonalitiesspeed materials time to target however they are two distinct mission areas. First and foremost both capabilities are very important for projecting a strong deterrence posture.The capabilities being developed will complement the already robust weapon systems Raytheon Technologies offers.
