Northrop Grumman [NOC] has opened a first-of-its-kind facility that integrates research, development, testing and production of hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems to meet planned and future demand at scale, the company said on Thursday.
Construction of the 60,000 square-foot Hypersonics Capability Center (HCC) in Elkton, Md., began in July 2021 and brings together digital engineering, modern manufacturing equipment, and the engineers and production teams “on the floor” to understand the impact of design decisions on manufacturing and on affordability, reliability and producing at scale, Chris Haynes, director of strategy and business development for Missile Products at Northrop Grumman, told reporters during a virtual roundtable.
Completion of the HCC follows a $985 million contract last September awarded to RTX [RTX] to develop the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), which will be powered by a scramjet engine supplied by Northrop Grumman. In addition to HACM, the HCC will be able to support future Defense Department hypersonic systems.
Haynes pointed out that that industrial base for air-breathing propulsion systems is relatively immature compared to work around solid rocket motors that typically power missiles “and so our approach was to try to put as much of the capability under one roof, trying to minimize part movement.” Simply put, raw materials will enter one side of the HCC and finished engines will exit the other side, he said.
The center will employ more than 50 people and was designed with “modularity and scalability in mind” and more square footage can be built, if necessary, Eddie Jones, the company’s operations director for missile products, said during the briefing.
“We have the building setup so that we can do quick and scalable growth and also modulates multiple product lines within the same center,” Jones said. “So, I think that’s important, too, as we look to the future of what the field systems will become, that this facility can support that…multiple types of high-speed air-breathing propulsion systems.”
The flexibility that the HCC offers is necessary because “the future demand signal is not fully clear in terms of total quantity needs” for air-breathing hypersonic systems, Haynes said.