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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Raytheon has scored nearly US$175 million to work on DARPA's ongoing research into hypersonics [theregister.co.uk].

This time, it's not about a hypersonic plane: the program that got its contract announcement [fbo.gov] on the United States Federal Business Opportunities register today is for a hypersonic weapons system.

HAWC – the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept – is a joint project with the US Air Force to “develop and demonstrate critical technologies to enable an effective and affordable air-launched hypersonic cruise missile”, the DARPA project page says [darpa.mil].

Raytheon's latest contract is for a scramjet HAWC, for which $3.4 million has already been committed.

While rocket-based systems routinely reach hypersonic speeds, a Mach 5 capable cruise missile would be faster to deploy and offer longer ranges than current military systems, DARPA reckons.

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