Raytheon Missiles & Defense and Northrop Grumman have announced that they have been selected to develop the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) for the US Air Force (USAF). HACM is an air-breathing scramjet-powered munition design which was developed in conjunction with the US-Australian Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE) project arrangement. For HACM, Northrop Grumman will provide the Scramjet engines, while Raytheon will provide the are responsible for the main body of the weapon.
Scramjet engines rely on their host vehicle’s speed to compress air before combustion in order to attain sustained hypersonic flight of >Mach 5, however they typically require a secondary propulsion component, such as a booster rocket, to provide the initial boost to supersonic speeds before the scramjet is activated.
MC
