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The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen Boeing to develop a prototype and conduct flight testing of its upcoming Glide Breaker hypersonic interceptor.
Glide Breaker is a planned huge leap forward in missile interceptors, as it's designed to target the highly maneuverable class of weapons known as hypersonic glide vehicles, which are able to execute abrupt "zig-zag" maneuvers as they glide unpowered through Earth's atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and higher. This combination of speed and maneuverability makes such weapons much harder to defend against than traditional missiles.
"Hypersonic vehicles are among the most dangerous and rapidly evolving threats facing national security," Gil Griffin, executive director of Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Weapons, said in a Boeing statement announcing the four-year agreement with DARPA, which involves wind tunnel testing, simulations and flight testing of a Glide Breaker prototype. "We're focusing on the technological understanding needed to further develop our nation's counter-hypersonic capabilities and defend from future threats."
Boeing's contract with DARPA will fund simulations that will evaluate Glide Breaker designs using wind tunnel studies and what is known as computational fluid dynamics, computerized models of how a fluid — in this case air — interacts with an object such as a missile interceptor. In addition, Boeing will conduct testing to evaluate how Glide Breaker's jet thrusters affect its overall aerodynamic performance as they fire to help the vehicle maneuver into position to intercept and defeat hypersonic weapons in flight.
A Pentagon contract announcement dated Sept. 8 states that Boeing's Glide Breaker development agreement with DARPA is worth $70,554,525. While a few notional images have been published by DARPA, little is known about what the final design or overall capabilities of Glide Breaker will be. Boeing states this Phase 2 contract will "provide the foundation for future operational glide-phase interceptors" capable of defeating the ever-evolving threat of hypersonic glide vehicles.
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