1. Why do we care about extremely fast missiles?

2. The DoD is behind its adversaries in the hypersonics race

3. What is the DoD doing to address the problem?

Why do we care about extremely fast missiles?

Top Gun, Maverick, the latest Hollywood reboot of a 1980s classic, brought more awareness of hypersonics to the American public than any senior DoD official speech, budget allocation or even budding defense tech newsletters could. In the movie, Tom Cruise’s character ejects from a “hypersonic test aircraft” at Mach 10.

While disjointed from the movie’s plot and extremely unrealistic based on today’s known tech, the public was entertained by the fictional manned aircraft “Darkstar” that flew to Mach 10 airspeed, and may or may not actually exist.

Clearly hypersonics are top of mind in the American psyche, the US government, and DoD. The DoD has more than tripled the amount of money used to research and develop hypersonics since 2018 (2018: $1B and 2023: $4.7B requested), totaling over $9B spent since 2019.

Why is the government investing in hypersonics with over 70 R&D programs aimed at developing the capability across the Army, Navy, Air Force, Missile Defense Agency and DARPA?

Because hypersonic missile technology provides an offensive advantage with its ability to evade current missile defense technology (defense lags way, way behind).

Hypersonic weapons are defined generally as:

• Missiles that fly at greater than 5x the speed of sound (Mach)

  • For scale, the fastest US fighter can cruise at ~Mach 2, the X-15 (more on this next week, but think Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong) flew at Mach 6.7, the Space Shuttle at Mach 25 and the Apollo moon missions at Mach 35+ upon reentry

• Ability to maneuver constantly and change direction

  • Two Types: Boost Glide and Air-breathing

Hypersonic is more an attribute than a weapon, but most use the term in reference to a weapon that flies at Mach 5+ and can dynamically maneuver. Speed alone does not describe a hypersonic weapon

The Atlantic Council has a great primer explaining what hypersonic weapons systems are, the different types and use cases here.

The US homeland missile defense network starts with the Space Based Infrared System constellation of geosynchronous satellites (SBIRS), which recently received an upgrade, equipped with scanning infrared sensors to detect ballistic missile launches anywhere on the globe. Ballistic missiles (think nuclear weapons or ICBMs) are hot enough at launch to be easily detected by the infrared sensors. After launch, ballistic missiles follow a known flight path and trajectory that is easily computed due to lack of maneuvering. Hypersonic weapons are an evolution of ballistic weapons in that they maintain the same range while adding the ability to maneuver, thus mitigating the ability to defend via intercept.  

Key Challenges Defending Against Hypersonic Weapons:

• Much more difficult to detect (dimmer) vs. ballistic missiles

• Difficult to track and intercept in real time, reducing defense reaction time and defensive shoot-down attempts because of speeds - sometimes permitting only one attempt to neutralize

• Ability to penetrate missile defenses: current space-based sensor architectures are insufficient to detect and track

Essentially, hypersonic weapons prevent North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) from receiving an early warning, negating its ability to track and intercept an incoming missile that could be armed with a nuclear warhead (See: China’s Test Missile).

If Russia and China have the capability to evade US missile defense warning technology with hypersonic weapons systems, one can see why these weapons are both extremely capable and dangerous. On the other hand, if the US developed these weapons to successfully evade Chinese or Russian defenses, then new problems arise: the lack of mutually assured destruction erodes the Nash equilibrium.

Red Team Update - The DoD is behind its adversaries in the hypersonics race

The US has not consistently funded hypersonic weapons development. Lack of funding, testing, and technological unknowns (Scramjets work? Could something this fast be controlled? Shape of engine inlets?) have led to 75 years of inconsistency and a lack of momentum for technology advancements.

The US is no longer in the lead as both Russia and China have deployed hypersonic missiles with Russia even using some in Odessa, Ukraine.

China has deployed two hypersonic weapons, designated DF-17 and DF-ZF, in 2020. Both of these missiles have a range of 1,000 to 1,500 miles and are capable of performing extreme flight maneuvers during flight. The missiles are thought to be nuclear-capable. China has one of the most robust design and development infrastructures for hypersonics in the world. According to USD (R&E) in 2018, China has conducted 20 times as many hypersonics tests as the US which is not surprising since one think tank believes China is ahead on 37 out of 44 critical technologies.

China is thought to be pursuing hypersonics so aggressively for two primary use cases:

• Non-nuclear hypersonics weapons offer a less escalatory way of attacking the United States, preventing the United States from responding with a nuclear weapon response. For example, this capability could lessen the US’ willingness to defend its allies in the Indo-Pacific region or intervene in a regional conflict (Taiwan scenario)

• China only needs to neutralize a few key US installations in the Pacific. Hypersonics add a new dimension with the ability to quickly engage heavily defended assets (aircraft carriers)

China’s R&D Progress on Hypersonics

While it is difficult to find unclassified numbers on China’s R&D breakthroughs (unless you’re on Discord), one way to see China’s development can be counting the research papers published and domestic patents established. The Air Force’s Air University does a great study on China’s R&D development in hypersonics. China’s peak development activity occurred in 2016. The Soviet Atomic Bomb Project shows that the pace at which a country is publishing research can indicate how advanced a program is.

Russia’s Hypersonics Arsenal

Russia accelerated its hypersonics efforts in response to US missile defense deployments around the globe and the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001. Russia’s thesis is that designing hypersonic weapons to evade US missile defenses will aid in re-establishing Russia’s full nuclear potential.

Russia has three programs:

• Avangard - hypersonic glide vehicle launched from an ICBM missile booster

  • Successfully tested in 2016 and 2018, reaching a speed of Mach 20

  • Deployed in 2019 to operational capability

• Kinzhal - a maneuvering air-launched ballistic missile modified to be fired from a MIG-31 aircraft and reportedly used in Ukraine in 2022

• Tsirkon - a ship launched hypersonic cruise missile capable of traveling at speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 8

In the contrast to the US’ lack of funding on hypersonic weapons development, Russia and China have been first to field ‘capable’ hypersonic weapons armed with nuclear warheads. A nuclear-armed glider is still effective even if it is 10 times less accurate due to nuclear blast effects. The US hypersonic offensive weapons are only conventionally armed thus requiring precision strike capabilities.

What is the DoD doing to address the problem?

“Per defense modeling and analysis, maneuvering hypersonics will be our best option for penetrating peer competitors’ future air defenses.” - Professor Richard Hamilton and former acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mark Lewis, who we had the pleasure of speaking with recently at the 2nd National Summit on Hypersonic Weapon Systems.

The only problem: hypersonics are very expensive per copy and have a bleak outlook for cost reductions leveraging economies of scale. Inventories are likely to remain small even after programs of record are established.

DoD is requesting $13B over the 2023 - 2027 period for developing these hypersonic missile programs and almost $2B for procuring missiles. DoD is proceeding outside the usual acquisitions process using rapid prototyping and President Biden recently initiated the Defense Authorization Act to quickly develop these missiles and supply chains.

Multiple contracts have been awarded to test and develop prototype hypersonic weapons capabilities. The usual suspects are all working toward developing the next program of record using mixed approaches of boost-glide and air-breathing systems:

• Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, ARRW - Lockheed Martin

  • Awarded $998M contract but recently failed a flight test and decided to not move forward with the program

• Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile - Raytheon & Northrop Grumman

  • Awarded $985M contract from the Air Force

• Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon - Dynetics (Subsidiary of Leidos)

  • Awarded $351M contract from the Army

• Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive, HALO - Lockheed Martin & Raytheon

  • Awarded $116M contract from the Navy

• Conventional Prompt Strike - Lockheed Martin

  • Awarded $1.1Bn contract from the Navy

• Mayhem (ISR and Strike capability) - Leidos & AFRL

  • Awarded $334M R&D contract

United States prototype research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) of hypersonic weapon systems:

Missile development is one aspect to solving the hypersonics problem. Supply chains, testing and hypersonic missile defense comprise another area that requires significant investment and innovation.

The DoD recently awarded three contracts totaling $25MM to bolster the hypersonics supply chain (detailed in this week’s Term Sheet). Significant opportunities exist for entrepreneurs to develop software for digital modeling of hypersonic vehicles, testing infrastructure (i.e. wind tunnels, thermal protective systems) and composite materials. We will detail these opportunities next week to include some defense startups attempting to tackle this seemingly ‘Sputnik moment’ in missile technology.

The Term Sheet

A rollup of defense industry mergers, acquisitions, capital raises and notable contract wins

• FDH Aero, a global provider of supply chain solutions for the aerospace and defense industry acquires BJG Electronics Group, a leading provider of interconnect and electromechanical products for the defense, commercial aerospace and space end-markets - April 27, 2023

• Lentech announced the acquisition of Eclipse Engineering, a high impact provider of software and IT solutions to the intelligence community and DoD - April 27, 2023

• MiddleGround Capital Completes First Add-On for its Megatech platform with acquisition of Advantage Metal Products, a provider of high precision metal products - April 25, 2023

Notable Recent Hypersonic Contracts

• Northop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) was awarded $9.4M contract to expand production capacity for high temperature resistant composites - April 28, 2023

• GE (NYSE: GE) was awarded $8M to increase domestic production capacity for high temperature resistant composites - April 28, 2023

• Carbon-Carbon Advanced Technologies (C-CAT) was awarded a $7.6M contract to build new production capabilities and manufacturing spaces of carbon-carbon (composite material critical to defense applications due to strength and thermal resistance) - April 28, 2023

Notable Capital Raises 

• X-Bow, provider of rapidly produced, low-cost solid rocket motors (SRMs) using advanced manufacturing technology secures an AFWERX $60M STRATFI Award funded from government, private investment and SBIR funds - April 26, 2023

• EdgeQ closes $75M Series B investment and ramps to customers’ demand for its award-winning 5G+AI base station on a chip for 5G networks - April 19, 2023