INNOVATION AT MACH 5


JOINT TEST EXPERIMENTS


Hypersonic weapons, capable of flying at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), are highly maneuverable and operate at varying altitudes. During two recent successful joint test events, Flight Experiment 1 (FE-1) in October 2017 and Flight Experiment 2 (FE-2) in March 2020, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved sustained hypersonic glide at target distances. (Graphic courtesy of RCCTO)


training from Sandia in order to execute the parallel builds. Tese trained technicians can then transfer that knowledge to indus- try’s production facilities.


In another major effort, the Army and Navy aligned all stakehold- ers onto a common schedule of glide body testing and production, in order to support Army prototype delivery in the 2023 fiscal year and Navy prototype delivery in the 2025 fiscal year. Flip- ping the switch from the occasional flight test every few years to flight tests every year, or more frequently, in conjunction with design development while preparing for production, was no small task, involving synchronization of hundreds of joint program milestones and documents ranging from critical design reviews to classification guides to new equipment training plans. Te joint team also worked through culture gaps and the dynamics of “forming, storming and norming” to quickly begin performing at a high level. A key factor in making all of this happen quickly was the professionalism of the team and the shared understanding of


40 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2021


the industry partners regarding the importance of the hyperson- ics mission to the National Defense Strategy. Seeing Russian and Chinese hypersonic advancements in the news headlines provided consistent reinforcement.


BRINGING TECHNOLOGY AND STAKEHOLDERS TOGETHER As plans were established to achieve all critical test and production activities, it quickly became apparent that the small commu- nity of engineers and technicians who had been working glide body efforts for many years would not be sufficient to meet the new quantity and schedule demands in place. Industry part- ners needed to be brought up to speed and trained on the glide body design and production methods, and the Sandia team would need additional personnel to conduct all of the work now facing it. A lack of resources extended beyond technical exper- tise, and included more mundane tasks such as support for all of the procurement activities, building or procuring additional test


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