An Army hypersonic weapon test scheduled for Wednesday was canceled following pre-flight checks, the service confirmed on Thursday.
The test was planned to happen at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, because the Army goals to field the primary operational battery of its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) by the top of yr.
“The department was capable of successfully collect data on the performance of the bottom hardware and software that may inform the continued progress toward fielding offensive hypersonic weapons. Delivering hypersonic weapons stays a top priority for the department,” the Army said in a press release to Defense Each day.
Wednesday’s canceled event, first reported by Florida Today, follows a flight test planned for early March at Cape Canaveral that was also called off following pre-flight checks (Defense Each day, March 10).
“During a recently planned flight test, automated pre-flight checks identified that a battery didn’t activate which resulted in not conducting the test. We’re aggressively investigating the explanation for the no test and can proceed to maneuver forward with our development and extra testing in support of Army fielding as soon because the cause is identified and corrected,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the Navy’s director of strategic systems programs, told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee during a hearing soon after the canceled Army and Navy joint test in March.
Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, director of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) that has overseen LRHW development, affirmed in August that this system is heading in the right direction to field the primary live missile rounds to the unit operating the initial battery of the brand new weapon system before the top of 2023 (Defense Each day, Aug. 9).
“It’s going to occur. We’re not there yet. I’m not here popping the champagne bottle right here on the stage, but we’re going to get there. I have faith within the industry team and I have faith in our team to get back out to prove this capability,” Rasch said during remarks on the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. “There’s missiles lined up in various stages of production, able to finish buttoning up and get those out to the sector.”
The Army’s LRHW, which has been in development for about 4 years, will share the identical all-up missile round and canister in addition to the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) with the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program.
In 2019, the Army selected Lockheed Martin [LMT] to serve because the weapon systems integrator for the LRHW, which will probably be fired from a truck, while Dynetics [LDOS] is tasked with producing the C-HGB.
The Army accomplished fielding of the bottom equipment for its first prototype hypersonic weapon battery, minus the live rounds, in the autumn of 2021 to the soldiers from the I Corps’ fifth Battalion, third Field Artillery Regiment, seventeenth Field Artillery Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington and who’ve been testing on the equipment since then.