The Department of Defense’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, in collaboration with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, has selected the finalists for a two-phase challenge that aims to develop novel approaches to rapid development and flight testing of hypersonic prototypes.
L3Harris Technologies‘ Aerojet Rocketdyne subsidiary, Castelion Corporation, GoHypersonic, Northrop Grumman and Specter Aerospace will move forward to Phase II of the Hyper-AMPD! prize challenge to build a feasibility study on the white paper concepts they submitted for Phase I, NAVSEA said Friday.
JHTO is looking for novel ideas that can be developed and tested within 24 months to accelerate the integration of hypersonic weapons into the U.S. missile defense systems.
The office will select up to two winners of the challenge, which offers $500,000 in cash prizes.
“Submissions came from a wide range of idea generators, as well as created new partnerships in response to this challenge. It was incredibly difficult to narrow the selection for Phase II, but I am very excited to see the outcome of the feasibility studies over the coming months,” said Sarah Armstrong, Director of JHTO’s Systems Engineering Field Activity at NSWC Crane.