The U.S. Air Force’s proposed fiscal 2025 budget requests $517 million to maintain developing its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile — however the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon’s future is looking dim.
The service’s FY25 budget, released Monday, includes no procurement nor research and development funding for Lockheed Martin’s ARRW. The service has one final all-up round test planned for the weapon soon and can wrap up its rapid prototyping program this 12 months.
HACM and ARRW are the Air Force’s two important programs to develop hypersonic capabilities that may fly at speeds greater than Mach 5 and be highly maneuverable, making them hard for enemies to trace and shoot down. Each are air-launched, and the service said in budget documents the programs are complementary. HACM is an air-breathing missile, and ARRW is a boost-glide hypersonic weapon.
China and Russia have focused heavily on developing hypersonic capabilities. Some lawmakers have criticized the Pentagon’s progress on fielding the US’ own hypersonic weapons, and warned the country is falling behind.
Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters on the McAleese & Associates conference on March 7 that the outcomes of ARRW’s final test will help the Air Force determine this system’s maturity and discover the combination of hypersonic capabilities it would need.
“The Air Force stays committed to totally analyzing and understanding all test data gathered while conducting the ARRW rapid prototyping test series,” the service said in an email. “This data will inform subsequent development and fielding decisions with ARRW.”
In a press release to Defense News, Lockheed Martin expressed pride in its work on ARRW.
“Lockheed Martin has exceeded requirements on the ARRW program, achieving a mature, fully-qualified weapon system and a longtime production line,” the corporate said. “The exceptional work completed by this government-contractor team will provide synergies to follow-on opportunities. Lockheed Martin will proceed to use our expertise to deliver tactical and operational assets to make sure revolutionary hypersonic-strike capabilities may be rapidly deployed to the U.S. military.”
Lt. Gen. Dale White, military deputy for Hunter’s office, told lawmakers Tuesday that ARRW has been “a categorical success so far,” and said a final decision on this system will probably be based on an evaluation of its final flight test.
ARRW’s future has been unsure since a March 2023 test failed. Shortly after, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers this system had “struggled” in testing. Kendall also said in that hearing the service was more committed to HACM, which he said had been “reasonably successful” and can be compatible with more of the service’s aircraft.
The day after Kendall testified to Congress, Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, told lawmakers the service didn’t plan to pursue follow-on procurement of ARRW after its prototyping concluded.
Budget documents released Monday said HACM would have the opportunity to perform “vastly different trajectories” than a boost-glide missile comparable to ARRW, and its additional complexity would make it more of a threat against adversaries. HACM can be smaller than ARRW, which makes it easier to mount on more aircraft, the documents said.
The Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon’s total cost will probably be $1.7 billion.
The Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile’s $517 million in research, development test and evaluation funds can be a substantial increase from fiscal 2023, when it received $387 million in R&D funding, and monetary 2024, through which the Air Force requested $382 million for this system.
The Air Force also expects to spend almost $449 million on HACM in fiscal 2026, and somewhat greater than $200 million on this system in the next two years. In all, the Air Force up to now expects to spend greater than $2.4 billion on HACM.
The Air Force in 2022 awarded Raytheon, a subsidiary of the corporate now called RTX, and Northrop Grumman a contract to develop HACM, which grew out of a program dubbed Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency managed.
Hunter said on the McAleese conference that while HACM remains to be a so-called middle tier of acquisition program meant to rapidly develop prototypes, he has stressed to industry that the Air Force intends to field such capabilities in the future — and industry should act like the federal government is working on a production program.
“[T]he goal is to develop a fielded capability that we’ll move into production on essentially the most rapid timeframe that we will reasonably and prudently perform and execute,” Hunter said.
He later told reporters there at the moment are no testing dates set for HACM.
The Army and Navy are also expecting delays to their joint hypersonic program, as testing has fallen behind schedule. The Army calls its ground-launched missile the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, and the Navy calls its sea-launched version Conventional Prompt Strike. The 2 services had planned to purchase hypersonic missiles in 2025, but those moves at the moment are on hold to permit testing to catch up.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.