Overview
- DARPA, which published a request for information on Aug. 7, is soliciting unconstrained, system-level concepts for a Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile to decide whether to pursue a funded demonstrator program.
- The agency is asking for a “revolutionary leap” in range, speed, altitude, manoeuvrability and survivability rather than incremental upgrades to existing designs.
- Respondents must show design-for-manufacturing-and-assembly plans that make the weapon affordable and producible at high rates so the U.S. could field larger numbers of hypersonic cruise missiles.
- DARPA is seeking high-risk, high-reward technologies such as air-breathing scramjet propulsion, high-energy fuels, advanced boosters, high-temperature materials, thermal management, and novel test and telemetry methods.
- The RFI sets an industry day in September and an Oct. 6 response deadline, and notes the NGHCM work would sit alongside current service programs like HACM, Dark Eagle and the Navy’s CPS while shaping future strike options against growing integrated air-defence threats.