El Departamento de Defensa de EUA la ordenado la realizaci\u00f3n de un profundo estudio acerca de las caracter\u00edsticas y capacidades que deber\u00eda tener la \u201cBase Industrial para la Defensa\u201d en el \u00e1rea de Armas Hipers\u00f3nicas, a efectos de identificar los puntos cr\u00edticos en la cadena de suministros e infraestructura que el sistema actual tiene, como para desarrollar y producir sin sobresaltos estas revolucionarias armas de extrema velocidad.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 The Department of Defense has launched a deep dive study into the industrial base for hypersonic weapons<\/a>, in order to understand the weak spots in America\u2019s drive towards the high-speed offensive and defensive technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mark Lewis, the department\u2019s director of research and engineering for modernization, told reporters Monday that a new \u201chypersonic war room\u201d has been set up, led by him and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Kevin Fahey, in order to identify \u201ccritical nodes\u201d in the supply chain<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat is the state of our base, is it positioned to produce at the scales we\u2019re anticipating? [There are] a lot of moving parts to that. We\u2019re obviously in a position now to develop concepts, develop prototypes, but producing at scale is a different proposition,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cIt\u2019s production capabilities, manufacturing capabilities, high temperature materials.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re not just at the tier-1 suppliers, but we\u2019re looking at other suppliers necessary to provide at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis said to expect an \u201cinitial report\u201d from that study group in the next few months, but also said he suspects the work will be \u201can ongoing activity\u201d that evolves as the hypersonic strategy and development process becomes clearer.<\/p>\n As an example of the kind of thing that needs to be considered, Lewis pointed to questions of how air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles could requires a supersonic combustion ramjet engine. The department does not currently know for sure it has the materials \u2014 or know how \u2014 for such a capability within the industrial base.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A series of Pentagon reports in the last two years have raised serious concerns about the defense industrial base, particularly when it comes to high-end materials and design knowledge for missiles. In some cases, the only supplier for critical materials come from China, the exact country the U.S. is investing in hypersonic weapons to counter.<\/p>\n Lewis, who served as the chief scientist for the Air Force from 2004 to 2008, also stressed the importance of building up the workforce, particularly by providing stable hypersonic research funding to universities, where the department is in the early stages of putting together a hypersonics consortium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re especially interested in leveraging parts of the university community, the nontraditional layers \u2014 the folks who haven\u2019t done the basic high-speed fluid mechanics who can bring other capabilities to bear, [like] guidance, navigation and control, material development, systems engineering,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think it\u2019s important not only for development concepts but obviously to make the workforce available in industry, as well as in our government laboratories.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The department requested $3.2 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation funds related to hypersonic weapons<\/a> in FY21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n