The AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Reaction Weapon ( ARRW) job, the US government’s shop to China and Russia’s foe, more advanced hypersonic missile plans, has received fresh funding despite earlier symptoms of withdrawal due to poor test results.
The US Air Force made an additional US$ 13.4 million for the ARRW, according to The War Zone’s report this fortnight.
The ARRW program could be ended or a related follow-on program, known as the Tactical Boost Glide ( TBG), which is suggested as the funding could be used to stifle the ARRW or accelerate a related follow-on program, which would indicate a potential classified evolution or adaptation of the ARRW program. The money knock raises Lockheed Martin’s ARRW agreement’s full price to over$ 1.3 billion.
A jet booster is used to force an unpowered fly vehicle to fast speeds exceeding Mach 5, making it challenging for adversaries to spot, track, and intercept. The ARRW is a fast boost-glide vehicle.
The TBG system is a cooperative DARPA-Air Force work to help air-launched military range hypersonic boost-glide systems that can be launched from existing platforms, according , to Pentagon documents cited by The War Zone. The software will even consider tracking, compatibility and connectivity with the US Navy’s Vertical Launch System, it said.
The ARRW, estimated to cost between$ 14.9 and$ 17.5 million per unit, is considered essential for countering greatly defended, high-value goals such as vital air defense and other command and control networks, including people housed in dried services. The ARRW would only be fielded in a small number due to its high costs.
However, the Arms Control Association (ACA ) reported in November 2023 that the ARRW faced termination in fiscal year 2024 due to repeated live-fire testing failures. The$ 150 million requested for its ongoing development was eliminated by the US Senate and House of Representatives versions of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
According to the ACA report, the program’s setbacks had caused delays in the procurement that had been originally anticipated for 2023. These problems highlighted the lack of a coherent strategy for developing the hypersonic weapons China and Russia needed to compete with. The program’s “final” cost has been reported at$ 1.7 trillion.
In a July 2024 National Defense Magazine article, Josh Luckenbaugh notes how America’s hypersonic weapon program lags behind China, which boasts the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal, and Russia, which has deployed three hypersonic systems and used them in battle against Ukraine.
Luckenbaugh cites China’s significant investments in hypersonic research and infrastructure, including numerous wind tunnels, over the past 20 years. That, Luckenbaugh says, contrasts with US hypersonic expertise, which has deteriorated since the end of the previous Cold War and now resides mostly in academia, not industry.
The program continues with planned flight tests, including a significant demonstration over the Western Pacific in March 2024, despite the US Air Force’s budget’s 2025 budget’s exclusion of additional ARRW funding. That’s likely due to rising US concerns about China’s hypersonic-bolstered anti-access/area denial ( A2/AD ) capabilities.
The US Air Force may now be using the ARRW program to test new technologies, methods, and procedures for maintaining safe separation from launch aircraft, collecting data and telemetry, and gathering information to inform other classified and future US projects involving sustained hypersonic flight.
The US’s apparent strategic shift toward air-breathing designs such as the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept ( HAWC ) missile, which the US Air Force said it preferred over the ARRW in March 2023, may lead to more cost-effective, versatile solutions, potentially avoiding the costly complexities of the ARRW’s boost-glide system.
In April 2022, Breaking Defense reported that air-breathing hypersonic weapons, which have no moving parts, offer significant advantages over boost-glide systems.
Because the HAWC operates in the atmosphere, it lessens the need for exotic materials to withstand the high temperatures that boost-glide systems experience, and thus lowers production costs. Additionally, the feature makes it possible to use it with a wider range of platforms, including fighters and bombers.
In contrast to air-breathing hypersonic weapons, Asia Times noted in April 2023 that the ARRW’s boost-glide design, which requires the careful integration of multiple subsystems, could contribute to test failures. Additionally, this complexity could cause more failure points, making design validation needs to be reworked.
Moreover, an August 2024 US Congressional Research Service ( CRS ) report says that boost-glide systems , do not travel faster than traditional ballistic reentry vehicles despite their unpredictable flight paths complicating missile defense.
The CRS report says that while boost-glide systems can evade some missile defenses due to their maneuverability, they suffer from overall speed limitations.
Additionally, it is noted that US research on conventional weapons focuses primarily on conventional warheads, necessitates higher precision than China’s and Russia’s nuclear-armed counterparts, increasing the technical complexity of the weapon’s development.
In order to compete with China and Russia, air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles may be more practical, versatile, and affordable, influencing US development and deployment strategies.
Thus, it’s likely that the US’s resembling preference for air-breathing hypersonics over boost-glide designs will have a significant impact on its upcoming defense development and procurement decisions.