Air Force plans hypersonic strike weapon contract award for late 2017

By Rachel Cohen / July 24, 2017 at 11:47 AM

The Air Force wants to start work this year to put a hypersonic, conventional strike weapon on fighter and bomber aircraft, according to a July 21 Federal Business Opportunities notice. The service plans to award a contract to one of five companies in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Orbital ATK are the only companies that could meet the Air Force's needs in a reasonable amount of time, the FBO notice states. The service asks for a hypersonic, GPS- and inertially guided strike capability to fire against high-value fixed and moving targets in denied environments. Each weapon would use an undisclosed government-issued warhead.

The development and integration contract will span all work through the engineering and manufacturing development phase, according to FBO. A June 29 FBO post noted the weapon would be flown on existing aircraft and that companies need to design and analyze the new system for rapid fielding.

The Air Force did not respond to questions about the hypersonic strike effort by press time (July 24).

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