Posted on 03/03/2003 11:21:47 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is implementing an innovative NationalAerospace Initiative (NAI) to co-ordinate research activities among its military branches and agencies in the realms of high-speed hypersonic propulsion, next-generation access to space and future spacecraft.The defence budget is expanding technologies related to hypersonics and space because these areas take on greater importance in the department's future warfighting vision. The DoD has requested approximately $1 billion funding in these areas for Fiscal Year 2004 (FY04) - about $150 million more than in FY03 - and expects to sustain these levels in future budgets.
Next-generation cruise missiles, strike aircraft and space launch vehicles hold the promise of revolutionising warfare with the ability to project devastating power to significantly greater distances at breakneck speed.
However, the DoD has had an inconsistent track record in maturing these technologies, defining clear and realistic goals, eliciting co-operation among its offices and ensuring the continuity of funding support.
Nevertheless, the department hopes that the NAI will change that. The purpose of the initiative is "to help ensure American leadership in aerospace through an integrated approach of developing, maturing, demonstrating and transitioning technologies", said Ronald Sega, the DoD's director of defence research and engineering, whose office is spearheading the effort.
Under the NAI, his office expects to co-ordinate activities with non-DoD bodies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), he noted.
Sega told Jane's Defence Weekly that he sees his role as a co-ordinator to establish a technology roadmap, bring the DoD's research and development community together, promote innovation, ensure funding continuity and, perhaps most importantly, encourage the community to carry out demonstrations of the technologies at various points.
In this way, he noted, the state of the art will advance in a practical manner,allowingpotential 'offramps' for near-term acquisition programmes while the main research thrust continues unabated with an eye on long-term applications.
Hypersonics is a case in point, Sega said. The USA has yet to demonstrate an air-breathing hypersonic engine in flight despite decades of intermittent research.
NASA's X-43A Hyper-X programme intends a second attempt in late 2003 after a booster anomaly halted the first flight attempt in June 2001.
The DoD's own hypersonic programmes, which he said have shown great promise in ground testing, are not expected to attempt flight until late-2004 at the earliest.
If these demonstrations prove successful, the US Air Force or Navy might opt to pursue an expendable hypersonic cruise missile in the next decade, he noted.
At the same time, this technology base would serve as a foundation for the propulsion system of a long-range strike platform in the decade after, or as the first stage of a two-stage reusable space launch vehicle beyond that.
Sega said his goal is to achieve M12.0 air-breathing propulsion by 2012, with the state of the art increasing by M1.0 per year up to 2012. The air force and navy, for example, plan flight tests of their respective HyTech and HyFly supersonic combustion ramjet engines around M6.0 in 2006.
"An important part of the way ahead is to look at demonstrations so that you have people focused on relatively near-term activities that require pulling the [technology] pieces together and doing that in relatively rapid fashion," Sega said.
"But step-wise. You are not picking off M25.0. You are picking off M4.0, then M5.0, M6.0 as you go forward. The challenges are there, but they are not as steep as grabbing for an advanced vehicle [at the onset] with a high Mach number that is reusable." In the process, he noted, "you learn and you learn a lot".
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