By Debbie Gregory.

Washington is stepping up its efforts to develop and field hypersonic weapons as it competes to retain America’s technological advantage. To that end, Lockheed Martin has secured a contract worth close to $1 billion to provide hypersonic cruise missiles to the U.S. Air Force.

Hypersonic weapons — ones that can fly five times faster than the speed of sound — are a top priority of Michael Griffin, the defense undersecretary for research and engineering.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract is for the “design, development, engineering, systems integration, test, logistics planning, and aircraft integration support of all the elements of a hypersonic, conventional, air-launched, stand-off weapon.”

“This effort is one of two hypersonic weapon prototyping efforts being pursued by the Air Force to accelerate hypersonics research and development,” service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement. “The Air Force is using prototyping to explore the art-of-the-possible and to advance these technologies to a capability as quickly as possible.”

The other prototyping program is the Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW).

“Design, development, production, integration and test experts from across Lockheed Martin will partner with the Air Force to achieve early operational capability and deliver the system to our warfighters,” said John Snyder, vice president of Air Force Strategic Programs at Lockheed Martin. “We are incredibly proud to be leading this effort.”

According to the Air Force, the ARRW effort is pushing the art-of-the-possible by leveraging the technical base established by the Air Force/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) partnership.

Recent thinking from senior Air Force weapons developers had held that US hypersonic weapons might first be deployable by the early 2020s. Hypersonic drones for attack or ISR missions, by extension, were thought to be on track to emerge in the 2030s and 2040s.

But the aggressive new Air Force hypersonic weapons prototyping and demonstration effort is expected to change this time frame in a substantial way.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Bell V-280 Valor helicopter will soon be equipped a sensor system that will give pilots an early warning when enemy activity is approaching.

Manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor (PDAS) system provides “360-degree awareness around your aircraft via sensors,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Jeff Schloesser, executive vice president for strategic pursuits at Bell.

The head-tracked helmet-mounted display feeds pilots video from the 360-degree sensor devices.

The  V-280 Valor provides warfighters strategic options, operational reach, tactical agility and overmatch at the point of decision. The design supports ground maneuvers and is purpose built for the squad plus enablers.

With more than twice the speed and range of current helicopter platforms, the V-280 Valor is designed to fly an infantry squad on a 200-mile air assault mission and return to base without the need to refuel.

Safe and survivable, the design features integrated cabin armor, fly-by-wire component redundancy, state of the art countermeasures and performance.

Beyond the increased functionality, it should be more comfortable, too. Because the V-280’s wing doesn’t tilt like a V-22, a necessity for shipboard operations, fast-ropers leaving the aircraft’s side-door avoid “the hot air from the engine going out backwards,” Schloesser said.

“If you’ve got a new car, you’ve probably got a TV camera in the back so when you back up you don’t back into something,” Schloesser said.

But this new technology expands that view to 360 degrees.

The V-280 isn’t designed for ship launches, but in a pinch, takeoff from the deck of a carrier would be possible.

Bell is working to finalize its V-280 Valor, making sure it can meet its performance goals.

The Valor has demonstrated that it can fly at 195 knots, but it will soon be able to reach a max speed of 280 knots, Schloesser said.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Defense Department has resumed accepting deliveries of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter after resolving a disagreement with Lockheed Martin over who should pay to fix the corrosion issues on a couple hundred jets.

It is still unknown as to who will ultimately be left with the repair bill. Spokesmen from Lockheed and the F-35 Joint Program Office declined to comment on whether the company or government will be held financially responsible.

The problem of corrosion in fastener holes that were drilled and not corrected or properly treated was originally identified last September. Defense Department officials felt the Pentagon shouldn’t be held wholly responsible for paying to retrofit planes due to Lockheed’s mistake, leading it to partially freeze deliveries during the negotiations.

The majority of the F-35s with the production defect causing corrosion around fastener holes will be repaired within two years.

Michael Friedman, a Lockheed spokesman, said an agreement was reached on correcting the problem but did not disclose who will end up paying the bill.

“The Pentagon has resumed accepting F-35 aircraft, following an agreement between the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) and Lockheed Martin to effectively and efficiently address the F-35 hole primer issue,” Friedman said.

Lockheed released a statement saying deliveries had resumed following an agreement between the F-35 JPO and the company to “effectively and efficiently” address the issue.

“All F-35 production continued during the delivery pause, and Lockheed Martin remains on track to meet its delivery target of 91 aircraft for 2018,” the company said.

“As a complex development program, whether it’s this program or any other program, things are going to happen in the production line and we’re going to address them as they come along,” said Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson.

The fifth-generation fighter jets, which are Lockheed’s flagship weapons system, account for about 25 percent of its revenues.

By Debbie Gregory.

If Lockheed Martin is able to deliver on its laser weapon system in development, the U.S. Air Force may boast a fleet of fighter jets that can shoot lasers from a small, compact cannon.

As part of the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments (LANCE program ) the $26.3 million contract with the Air Force Research Lab should result in a weapon system that is not only compact, but also light enough to be mounted on fighter jets.

Currently, most of these systems are limited to ground and sea use due to their weight and size. Such is the case for the ground vehicle–mounted system that Lockheed Martin just delivered to the U.S. Army that can burn through tanks and knock mortars out of the sky.

Lockheed Martin will be adapting the system it developed for the Army to address the challenge of self-protection against ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles.

The program’s work will be divided among three subsystems: the Shield Turret Research in Aero Effects (Strafe) includes the beam control system; the Laser Pod Research and Development (LPRD) will power and cool the laser on the fighter jet; and finally, the LANCE laser itself.

“The ability of a helicopter or bomber or fighter jet to shoot down or sufficiently damage or distract an incoming missile could allow them to operate in places they haven’t been able to operate recently,” said military analyst Peter Singer.

Raytheon became the first company to destroy a target with a laser fired from a helicopter at White Sands Missile Range when an Apache AH-64 shot a truck from more than a mile away. Raytheon is also building a laser-firing, drone-killing dune buggy. Boeing has its own anti-drone laser cannon.

Under the terms of the contract, Lockheed Martin plans to test a high-energy laser weapon mounted on a fighter jet by 2021.

By Debbie Gregory.

In tests conducted with the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command in August, the Army’s Advanced Test High Energy Asset (ATHENA) laser weapon brought down five 10.8′ wingspan Outlaw unmanned aerial systems.

Once ATHENA took aim at the back rudders of the Outlaw drones , they burst into flame, spiraling into a tailspin, falling to the ground.

“The system defeated airborne targets in flight by causing loss of control and structural failure,” Lockheed Martin said in press release. “Lockheed Martin and the Army will conduct post mission reviews, and data collected will be used to further refine the system, improve model predictions and inform development of future laser systems.”

Knocking drones out of the sky is just one of the uses that Lockheed envisions for its new laser technology. Lockheed Martin is hoping to expand the utility of its laser weapons systems to aircraft, ground vehicles, and ships.

“As we mature the technology behind laser weapon systems, we’re making the entire system more effective and moving closer to a laser weapon that will provide greater protection to our warfighters by taking on more sophisticated threats from a longer range,” said Keoki Jackson, Lockheed Martin’s Chief Technology Officer.

“Fiber-optic lasers are revolutionizing directed energy systems,” said Jackson. “We are investing in every component of the system – from the optics and beam control to the laser itself – to drive size, weight and power efficiencies.

ATHENA is a transportable, ground-based system that serves as a low-cost test bed for demonstrating technologies required for military use of laser weapon systems. Lockheed Martin is positioning laser weapon systems for success on the battlefield because of their speed, flexibility, precision and low cost per engagement.