Author: Lan Shunzheng
First published from: Sky Vision
The U.S. Air Force reportedly conducted an AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) test in the Pacific Ocean on March 17. This is the first time that the US military has tested an air-launched hypersonic weapon at an overseas base.
The U.S. military's "Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon" (ARRW) project is an air-launched boost-glide hypersonic weapon developed by the U.S. Air Force, and the weapon is officially named AGM-183A. The purpose of developing the missile is to improve the US Air Force's hypersonic strike capability, which can strike high-value, time-sensitive targets at long distances, including various land soft targets and fixed targets and surface warships. The ARRW program began in 2018 and is managed by the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Armaments Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
According to official public reports, the missile is composed of a single-stage solid booster and a warhead, with a total length of about 5.89 meters, a diameter of about 0.66 meters, and a mass of about 2.27 tons. The tail of the missile is equipped with a 4-piece folding tail that is folded when transported, stored and mounted, and unfolded when launched for better flight control. Inside the head fairing of the missile, a detachable, unpowered hypersonic glide body is installed, which is designed in the shape of a waverider in a wedge-shaped configuration and has two small wings in the tail. The overall mass of the glide body is about 68 kilograms, equipped with a high-explosive tungsten fragmentation to kill a conventional warhead, using a combination of GPS and inertial guidance technology, the maximum flight Mach number is about 10, and the range is more than 926 kilometers.
The combat mode of the AGM-183A missile is to strike the target by launching the carrier aircraft in the air, mainly including the lift-off stage, the booster stage, the gliding stage, and the strike stage. First, the carrier aircraft flies to a certain altitude after lift-off; then, the AGM-183A missile is released from the carrier aircraft, and the missile's booster ignition accelerates the missile to its maximum speed, and the glide body separates from the missile booster; after that, the glide body performs a hypersonic glide flight to the strike target in the adjacent space, and performs complex maneuvers to make it difficult for the opponent to track and intercept; finally, the glide body will carry out ballistic downward pressure during the re-entry strike, and dive into the attack target at a close vertical angle.
Previously, the U.S. Air Force planned that the missile would be preferentially equipped on strategic bombers such as the B-52H, B-1B and B-2, and later on F-15 fighters. The missile can be equipped on both bomber and fighter platforms, and can be attached to the fuselage or built-in weapon bay according to different models, which will help improve the combat capability of the U.S. Air Force. At the very beginning of the ARRW project, the word "fast" was highlighted, not only the missile should fly fast, but also the missile research and development should be fast. In 2018, the U.S. Air Force released approval documents for the ARRW program, requiring initial combat strength to be formed within 36 months of the contract award. Due to the urgent need, it is planned to use the research results of the DARPA Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG) project, such as aerodynamic/thermal analysis, thermal protection materials, guidance and control algorithms, software code, etc., for the development of ARRW to shorten the development cycle. The ARRW program was also mentioned in the Air Force's report to Congress in December of the same year on the Section 804 "Rapid Acquisition Model" authorization program of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, and the Air Force said it expects to shorten the ARRW weapons development cycle by five years through the adoption of Section 804. In December 2019, the U.S. Air Force signed a $989 million contract with Loma to complete the detailed ARRW design, experimental testing, and production support by December 31, 2022, when the missile will be initially operationally capable.
However, as the saying goes, "if you want to hurry, you can't do it", there was an opinion within the US military at the beginning that the schedule of the project was challenging, and the subsequent twists and turns in the research and development process also seemed to confirm this. In January 2019, based on the U.S. Air Force's report to Congress, the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) node for the ARRW project was postponed by one quarter to March 2019, and the Subsystem Critical Design Review (CDR) was postponed by two quarters to September 2019. The US Air Force was supposed to conduct the first test launch of this missile booster in 2020, but it was repeatedly postponed for various reasons. The AGM-183A has also not been going well during the tests. The missile failed five times on April 5, July 28, 2021, December 15, June 29, 2022 and March 13, 2023.
The serial accident of the AGM-183A has shaken the confidence of the US side in the project. For example, the U.S. Air Force previously sought about $161 million in funding in the fiscal year 2022 budget to produce the first batch of 12 AGM-183A hypersonic missiles, but in the U.S. House version of the fiscal year 2022 budget, the project was cut by nearly one-third, totaling $44 million. The budget cut is allegedly related to the immaturity of the AGM-183A missile, and members of the US House Appropriations Committee fear that if more problems arise in future tests, it will lead to "concurrency" problems - attempts to test, correct problems and produce missiles at the same time, which will increase the risk of producing the first missiles. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told members of Congress in 2023 that the ARRW program would "struggle" in future tests shortly after a failed test in March 2023.
After this test launch, the US Air Force did not mention the success of the test in its statement, saying only that it had "accumulated experience." U.S. Air Force officials previously said it would be the last test launch of the air-launched hypersonic weapon. According to the U.S. Air Force's recently released defense budget document for fiscal year 2025, funding for procurement and research for the ARRW program will be zeroed out in fiscal year 2025, which means that the U.S. Air Force has officially abandoned the ARRW project financially, so the AGM-183A missile may not show up after this test launch. However, the U.S. Air Force has put Raytheon in charge of the HACM hypersonic cruise missile project using scramjet engines, which has received continued support from the Air Force in the 2025 fiscal year budget of $517 million, so the U.S. military's research and development of air-launched hypersonic weapons continues.