Raytheon’s acquisition of directed energy firm Ktech in 2011 is paying dividends following the US Defense Department’s award of a $4.8 million contract to repackage two air-launched cruise missiles as high-power microwave weapons.
Ktech produced the pulsing electronics kit that Boeing proved could knock out banks of computers in an October 2012 flight demonstration, overseen by the US Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL).
The award to Raytheon is the first significant movement on the so-called Counter-electronics High-power microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) since that 2012 demonstration. The announcement is a blow to Boeing, which no longer leads the effort.
Despite all the hype surrounding the high-power microwave energy weapon known as CHAMP, interest in the computer-frying device assembled and tested by Boeing Phantom Works and the US Air Force Research Laboratory appears stalled.
“There was a lot of activity when we did the demonstration a couple of years ago, and with the budget constraint on the department, they’ve been unable to make it through, to our knowledge,” Phantom Works president Darryl Davis tells Flightglobal at a defence forum in Washington today. “From where it I sit; it has not translated into money or work.”
The Boeing-branded directed energy weapon has caught the attention of some in Congress, who have been lobbying for more investment in the 'counter-electronics high-powered microwave advanced missile project (CHAMP)'.
The US Air Force plans to introduce Boeing and Raytheon’s “CHAMP” high-power-microwave emitting cruise missile into the combat force on board the 1990s conventional air-launched cruise missile as an “interim capability” while the technology transitions to Lockheed Martin’s JASSM-ER.
Air Combat Command chief Gen Hawk Carlisle says the computer-killing capability, which knocks out electronic equipment with bursts of high-frequency electromagnetic energy, is a “great capability” that will be fielded in small numbers initially with US Global Strike Command – the air force’s nuclear combat force.
“We’ve talked about the transition of that capability for Global Strike Command, but that will probably be small numbers because what we really want to do is get CHAMP into next-generation missiles, so JASSM-ER,” Carlisle said at an Air Force Association event in Washington.
[...]
In terms of air superiority weapons, Carlisle says the development of next-generation air-to-air missiles is also “an exceptionally high priority”.
Raytheon’s AMRAAM is the current go-to Western weapon for beyond-visual-range air combat, but new long-range missiles being fielded by Russia and China are a significant concern to the Pentagon.
Carlisle says outmatching the Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missile in particular is an “exceedingly high priority”.
“The PL-15 and the range of that missile, we’ve got to be able to out-stick that missile,” he says.
The air force is currently exploring a range of next-generation weapon concepts as it also pursues a sixth-generation fighter aircraft.
The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has unveiled a technology roadmap for its cruise missile-based “CHAMP” high-power microwave (HPM) weapon, which successfully fried banks of computers at a test range in October 2012.
The organisation says it is working on an improved, second-generation “multi-shot, multi-target HPM cruise missile” that builds on the mature counter-electronics high-power microwave advanced missile project payload previously demonstrated.
Based on past comments by AFRL officials, this next iteration of the Boeing and Raytheon-built system will probably be carried on an extended-range Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER).
The laboratory is also eyeing an “HPM advanced missile” in the longer term with a more sophisticated CHAMP-like payload, and then eventual integration with a manned or unmanned aircraft.
The head of the Air Force Research Laboratory has nominated Lockheed Martin’s stealthy, long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER) as the optimal air vehicle to carry a new computer-killing electronic attack payload known as CHAMP, or Counter-electronics High-powered microwave Advanced Missile Project.
Major general Thomas Masiello says the technology, which fries electronic equipment with bursts of high-power microwave energy, is mature and will be miniaturised to suite the JASSM-ER.
“That’s an operational system already in our tactical air force, and that is really what will make us more operationally relevant,” Masiello says at a science and technology exposition at the Pentagon on 14 May. “Both the major commands and the combatant commands are very interested in that weapon system. It’s a non-kinetic effect.”
