Pentagon Makes Push for Dark Eagle: Long Range Hypersonic Weapon

By Johnny Franks, Warrior Editorial Fellow

The delay in deploying the United States Army’s Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) underscores substantial difficulties in advancing and deploying sophisticated military technology amid growing global tensions. The Dark Eagle system, a forefront technology designed to endow the U.S. military with hypersonic capabilities, has encountered delays mainly due to technical challenges during test phases.

Hypersonic weapons, achieving speeds beyond Mach 5 (over 3,836 miles per hour), navigate through various altitudes, making detection efforts complex. The Dark Eagle seeks to boost U.S. military’s precision strike prowess, propelling a maneuverable warhead at hypersonic velocities across vast distances. This skill is pivotal amid major power competition, especially against nations like China and Russia, who are also keenly developing and deploying hypersonic technologies. Notably, China introduced its first hypersonic weapon system, the DF-17, in 2019, highlighting the imperative for the U.S. to accelerate its efforts.

The creation of the Dark Eagle falls under the larger Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) initiative, a collaborative endeavor between the U.S. Army and Navy. This initiative endeavors to generate a hypersonic, cold-gas launched missile system, centralizing the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) as the weapon’s nucleus. The C-HGB combines the warhead, guidance mechanism, wiring, and the thermal protection shield, vital for the system’s hypersonic function.

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The program’s timeline has been thwarted by testing postponements and technical obstacles. An essential C-HGB test was aborted, extending the Army’s deployment schedule past its initial aim. Despite these hindrances, the project’s management remains dedicated to the system’s development and forthcoming deployment, emphasizing the necessity of assuring its dependability and safety for operational employment. Such carefulness mirrors the initiative’s intricacy and the technological challenges inherent in cultivating hypersonic capacities.

Furthermore, the cooperation between the Army and Navy exemplifies the unified tactic employed by U.S. defense forces in pushing forward hypersonic technology. This collaborative action is vital not only for deploying the Dark Eagle but also for establishing the basis for future hypersonic systems across military branches. The program’s phased testing strategy, aimed at verifying the system’s functionalities and resolving any technical problems, highlights the stringent procedures involved in operationalizing such advanced weaponry.