9 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

Air Force introduces hypersonic flight research vehicle

By:

The Air Force has officially named the hypersonic flight research vehicle it is testing.

The vehicle, dubbed X-60A, is being developed by Generation Orbit Launch Services Inc., under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory's Aerospace Systems Directorate and High Speed Systems Division.

X-60A is an air-dropped liquid rocket, purpose-built for hypersonic flight research. This is the first Air Force Small Business Innovative Research program to receive an experimental “X” designation, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base's public affairs office announced in a press release Thursday.

The Air Force Research Laboratory hopes the X-60A program will increase the frequency of flight testing while also lowering the cost of developing hypersonic technologies.

“The X-60A is like a flying wind tunnel to capture data that complements our current ground test capability,” said Col. Colin Tucker, military deputy, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for science, technology, and engineering.

“We've long needed this type of test vehicle to better understand how materials and other technologies behave while flying at more than 5 times the speed of sound," Tucker added. "It enables faster development of both our current hypersonic weapon rapid prototypes and evolving future systems.”

X-60A is envisioned as a way to provide the Air Force, other U.S. Government agencies and private industry with a platform to more rapidly develop technologies.

Rather than relying simply on ground test facilities to simulate hypersonic flight, an actual flight research vehicle will provide real conditions for researchers to gauge.

The testing will likely help in the Air Force's quest for hypersonic missiles. The service has already issued two contracts to Lockheed Martin to develop hypersonic weapons: the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon and the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon program.

Full article: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2018/10/08/air-force-introduces-hypersonic-flight-research-vehicle

Sur le même sujet

  • Nordic nations ponder military changes with NATO in mind

    1 avril 2024 | International, Aérospatial

    Nordic nations ponder military changes with NATO in mind

    With all Nordic countries now part of NATO, the nations must manage how to reconcile and integrate national, regional and alliance needs.

  • Stop the budgetary bleeding to get the Air Force we need

    26 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    Stop the budgetary bleeding to get the Air Force we need

    By: Douglas Birkey In 2018, then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson sounded the alarm regarding the size of her service: “The Air Force is too small for what the nation expects of us.” Her response was direct: The service needed to grow from 312 to 386 operational squadrons. Given the concurrent demands presented by China and Russia at the high end of the threat spectrum, Iran and North Korea in the middle, and the continued danger posed by nonstate actors at the lower threat tier, this imperative for growth was grounded in clear requirements. However, instead of marking a positive turning point for the service, subsequent years saw the Air Force grow smaller, older and more fragile. The burgeoning security environment demands that this downward spiral end now. This is exactly why the Senate's version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act includes specific aircraft inventory floors for the Air Force. With positive intentions having fallen short year after year, it is time for legislation to stop the bleeding. No form of power projection is possible without the capabilities afforded by the Air Force. Ships at sea, forces on land and rear echelon operating locations will not survive long if not defended from aerial attack. Long-range strike affords the unique ability to hit critical targets deep behind enemy lines. Air mobility empowers joint force operations. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance was the most in-demand mission area over the past two decades, and remains so today. Added to this, the Air Force also provides two-thirds of the nuclear triad. Despite the value provided by these missions, the Air Force has struggled to earn its fair share of the defense budget. It absorbed the largest fiscal cuts out of all the services in the years after the Cold War. Between 1989 and 2001, the Air Force saw procurement funding drop by over 52 percent — nearly 20 percent more than the other services. FY13 saw aircraft procurement funding hit the lowest levels in Air Force history. To add insult to injury, the Air Force also sees nearly 20 percent of its top-line budget diverted to the intelligence community — enough money to buy over 400 F-35 fighter jets a year. No other service gets hit like this. With budget pressures a perennial problem, the Air Force has continually sought to divest aircraft to free up cash. The problem is that the demand for Air Force missions never went away. Quite the opposite, it increased. In 1990, the Air Force had 2,893 fighters; today it has around 1,800. This same period saw bombers drop from 327 to 157. Combat operations have been unending since 1991, which means a smaller number of aircraft and crews simply get spun harder to meet demand. This is an unsustainable pattern, with the B-1B bomber standing as a cautionary tale. It has been flying combat missions on a nonstop basis since the 9/11 attacks. The Air Force retired a third of the B-1B inventory in the 2000s to save money that could be reinvested in the remaining aircraft. Budget pressures in subsequent years saw these savings evaporate, maintenance dollars run too thin and the aircraft pressed to the limit. They hit the breaking point last year, with less than 10 percent of the Air Force's B-1Bs mission-capable. With nearly every mission area in the Air Force inventory labeled as “high demand, low density,” expect to see similar challenges proliferate. These stresses are also a major driver behind the pilot crisis. Shrinking the Air Force in the hopes that expected savings could fund modernization has served as a continual mirage for Air Force planners. Indeed, the Air Force's answer to funding the Advanced Battle Management System and other priorities in the FY21 budget submission was to retire more aircraft. Better networks are of little use without the ability to complete the kill chain, and that takes aircraft. Presumed areas of growth hang precariously years into the future. There's little chance that cash will remain protected given COVID-19 budget pressures. The problem is that even when divestiture plans appear plausible on internal spreadsheets, service officials are not the ultimate arbiters of their resources. The broader Department of Defense, Office of Management and Budget, and Congress each have a vote on how funds are managed. This pattern clearly has not worked for the Air Force for the past 30 years. Playing this losing hand again will break the force at fundamental levels. That is why the Senate's proposed aircraft floor is not just a good idea — it is a necessity. A prudent negotiator does not enter a meeting with a high-risk position as the starting point, but that is exactly what the Air Force has done for far too long. The time has come to openly articulate what is required to meet national security requirements. That is what the 386 operational squadron goal is all about. It comes down to acknowledging what airmen will need to fly into harm's way, get the job done and come home safe. This takes both capability and capacity. It is time to rebuild the Air Force we need. Douglas Birkey is the executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, where he researches issues relating to the future of aerospace and national security. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/11/25/stop-the-budgetary-bleeding-to-get-the-air-force-we-need/

  • La France commande 367 nouveaux missiles air-air à MBDA

    19 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial

    La France commande 367 nouveaux missiles air-air à MBDA

    Le ministère des Armées a annoncé, jeudi 18 mars, la commande à MBDA de 367 missiles air-air de nouvelle génération Mica NG, dans le cadre d'un programme de 1,8 milliard d'euros. Les missiles, commandés le 5 mars par la Direction générale de l'armement (DGA), seront livrables entre 2028 et 2031. Ils remplaceront les missiles Mica et permettront notamment d'allonger la capacité d'interception à moyenne distance des avions de combat Rafale. Ne comportant pas de composants américains, ils ne sont pas tributaires de la législation Itar, qui impose l'autorisation des Etats-Unis pour l'exportation. Le ministère des Armées avait déjà commandé 200 Mica NG fin 2018, qui seront livrés à partir de 2026, rappelle Le Figaro. Le Figaro du 19 mars

Toutes les nouvelles