DARPA Scraps Plan To Launch Small Sats from F-15

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has scrapped plans to launch small satellites from a modified F-15 fighter jet after two tests of a new rocket fuel ended in explosions this year.
Instead DARPA will spend the next year studying how to harness the volatile nitrous oxide-acetylene propellant and, in parallel, modifications to existing small rockets that would enable the agency place small satellites on orbit on 24 hours notice at a cost of less than $1 million.
In March 2014, Boeing Defense Space and Security of Huntington Beach, California, won a contract potentially worth $104 million to build and demonstrate the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) system. The program was intended to demonstrate the capability to launch up to 45 kilograms of payload into low Earth orbit on short notice for as little as $1 million.
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Lockheed Makes Progress On Next Generation Anti-Ship Missile

Lockheed Martin has demonstrated that its Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) can be launched from the Mk-41 vertical launch system with only software modifications.
Lockheed tested with the new weapon with the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TTWCS), MK 41 VLS and Mk-114 rocket booster with the new software during company-funded trials.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—which is funding the overall LRASM effort—hopes to award Lockheed a sole-source contract for continuing development of the weapon next month according to a notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website on Dec. 20, 2013.
According to the notice, the contract will run for 24 months and will further the weapon’s sensor and avionics hardware development. DARPA will fund two further surface-launch LRASM tests in August and October 2014.
The LRASM, which is based on Lockheed’s stealthy AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range cruise missile, is being designed to give U.S. Navy surface warships the ability to “out-stick” enemy warships armed with advanced long-range anti-ship missiles.
Currently, only some Navy warships are armed with the Harpoon missile, which is greatly out-ranged by weapons used by potential adversaries such as the Russian-developed SS-N-22 Sunburn also known as the Raduga P-270 Moskit.
Lockheed officials expect that the LRASM—which can also be air-launched–will transition into a production program by 2018 with weapon being integrated onto the U.S. Air Force’s B-1 bomber and the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet.
In recent months, Navy leaders have renewed calls for more modern anti-surface weapons.
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DARPA Testing New Ship-Killing Missile

The Pentagon’s advanced research arm is developing a smarter and deadlier ship-killing missile, capable of evading interceptors and striking capital ships at long range. And it recently reached a new live-fire milestone.
In an Aug. 27 test, an Air Force B-1B bomber fired an inert long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM)that homed in on a moving ship target and tore through its stacked metal containers for a direct hit. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is overseeing the development, intends to design these anti-ship missiles to be fired from the B-1B and Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets. A sea-launched version would be fired from a cruiser or destroyer’s missile magazines.
The missile packs a punch: Its 1,000-pound warhead is double the size of the fleet’s primary anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, and could strike targets beyond 200 nautical miles away.
"It’s designed to take out capital ships that are in a formation, a surface action group,” said the program manager of the anti-ship missile at Lockheed Martin.
The anti-ship missiles fly at subsonic speeds and rely on stealth to defeat jammers and intercept missiles.
The anti-ship missile is a capability leap past the Harpoon, which has a 75-mile range and cannot be redirected in flight. The newer anti-ship missile is also more stealthy and likely to survive countermissile interceptors and bullets. And by being fired from vertical launch system tubes, the missiles can be heavier and go farther than a Harpoon.
LASRM can be shot in “fire and forget” mode or it can be directed to an area, where it will find the target on its own. It can also be sent new directions in-flight, much like a Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile and is a stealthy missile.
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Lockheed Martin conducted the first flight of stealthy AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (Jassm-ER)

Lockheed Martin has conducted the first flight test of a prototype anti-ship weapon based on its stealthy AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (Jassm-ER).
The flight was conducted on Aug. 27 under the joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Office of Naval Research (ONR) Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) program.
LRASM is developing a stealthy, survivable missile that can autonomously engage specific enemy warships at long range, in heavy electronic countermeasure without help from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets.
Graham Warwick-aviationweek

New U.S. drone to see everything, everywhere

U.S. agency DARPA has launched a new program called Node. The purpose of the program is to develop small-sized aircraft capable of carrying up to 600 pounds of payload. The projected range of the aircraft is from 600 to 900 nautical miles from the point of takeoff. The size of the new UAV will fit the size of smallest vessels.

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DARPA wants Predator-class UAV on LCS

The US Navy has operated unmanned aircraft from warships since Gyrodyne QH-50 drones carried anti-submarine torpedoes off the flightdecks of destroyers in the 1960s. But they have either been big ships (Pioneers on battleships) or small UAVs (ScanEagles on destroyers). No-one wants to recover a 55ft-wingspan MQ-1 Predator by flying it at a net or catching it on a rope.

Now DARPA wants to enable small ships such as the 2,800-ton Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship to launch and recover Predator-class medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs. The Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (TERN) program seeks to demonstrate a MALE UAV, and associated automated launch and recovery system, that can carry a 600lb payload 600-900nm from its host vessel.

Graham Warwick-aviationweek

USA DARPA announces new X-plane programme

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is releasing a requirement for a new experimental aircraft, combining the best of vertical take-off and landing technology with conventional aircraft.

The aircraft, one of the rare formally designated X-planes, is meant to both hover and fly at high speeds with efficiency equal to dedicated platforms. Specifications call for an aircraft capable of more than 300kt (555km/h) maximum airspeed; higher than conventional helicopters can achieve, and the ability to hover with greater efficiency than current rotorcraft.

So far, aircraft that have both flown at high speed and operated vertically cannot operate well in either flight profile.
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