Luego de algunas fallas en los recientes test de lanzamiento de misiles hipers\u00f3nicos, desde las plataformas terrestres m\u00f3viles del US Army, esa fuerza ha resuelto revisar su programa integral de ensayos. El desarrollo del Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), un misil que vuela a Mach 5 y con un alcance de 2.700km lleva algunos a\u00f1os y estaba prevista su evaluaci\u00f3n operativa en 2024, lo que ha tenido que reprogramarse. \u201cSe trata s\u00f3lo de un problema de ingenier\u00eda mec\u00e1nica en el lanzador, que deber\u00e1 ser resuelto. Es un problema del lanzador y no del misil\u201d expres\u00f3 Doug Bush, el responsable de adquisiciones del US Army.<\/p>\n
REAGAN NATIONAL DEFENSE FORUM \u2014 A \u201cmechanical engineering problem\u201d with the US Army\u2019s\u00a0hypersonic weapon\u00a0launcher is to blame for the recent test failures, a senior official told Breaking Defense, but now there is a new plan in place to correct it and potentially get the new weapon to soldiers within six months.<\/p>\n
The Army and Navy have been working in tandem on Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) development, which the ground service dubs Dark Eagle. Over the past several years, the Army experienced a series of pre-launch test failures causing them to postpone fielding from the end of September to the end of the calendar year. But that latter goal went out the window following another\u00a0scrubbed test<\/a>\u00a0in late-October.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a launcher problem,\u201d Doug Bush, the head of Army acquisition, told Breaking Defense in an interview at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., on Dec. 2.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no new science, it\u2019s just a mechanical engineering problem to make sure \u2026 that missile works with that launcher \u2026 because both were new and normally you don\u2019t do it that way,\u201d he later added.<\/p>\n Dark Eagle\u00a0uses a land-based truck system to fire rounds capable of traveling \u201cwell over\u201d 3,800 miles per hour \u2014 five times the speed of sound, the common definition of \u201chypersonic\u201d \u2014 towards targets within a 1,725-mile range, according to a Congressional Research Services report. The\u00a0Navy program<\/a>\u00a0uses the same\u00a0Common Hypersonic Glide Body missile but with a different launcher suited for the open waters\u00a0and vessels like the Zumwalt-class surface combatant.<\/p>\n That the Army\u2019s issue is with the launcher would appear to be good news for the Navy, as\u00a0the Pentagon\u2019s\u00a0Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering\u00a0Heidi Shyu told reporters that the Navy\u2019s program is not further hindered right now.<\/p>\n However, Bush said his sister service is involved with figuring out the way ahead with joint program leaders meeting late last month with officials from\u00a0Lockheed Martin<\/a>, the weapon systems integrator, to craft a revised test plan. Lockheed representatives did not immediately respond to an off-hours request this morning.<\/p>\n That new plan, he said, is to decouple launcher and missile testing so delays with one won\u2019t slow down the other. It will also focus on smaller scale,\u00a0subcomponent testing in order to \u201cbuild confidence over time\u201d and ensure that the Army has fixed its launcher problem. In tandem, the Army and Navy have tentative plans for concurrent missile testing.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/b>We still need to do a completely successful end-to-end shot with the missile, to build confidence in that too,\u201d Bush explained. \u201cSo rather than do it sequentially, I think we\u2019re leaning towards a revised testing campaign \u2026 so we can maintain closer to schedule, so we don\u2019t get too delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n While he didn\u2019t provide a firm aspirational fielding date for the Army weapon, he said\u00a0by April or May the service may be ready to attempt another full-up test and a successful one could lead to declaring the weapon operational.<\/p>\n Soldiers within the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force long-range fires battalion, 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington have already\u00a0received system components<\/a>\u00a0and training in anticipation of becoming that first operational unit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n