Joint US-Australian Hypersonic Cruise Missile Moves Ahead - Breaking Defense

The Defense Department’s joint effort with Australia to develop an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile took a step forward yesterday, with the Air Force issuing round-two contract options to Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The program, called Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE), is aimed at maturing “a solid-rocket boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic conventional cruise missile, air-launched from existing fighter/bomber aircraft, through the completion of a preliminary design review,” according to the DoD contract announcement.

The joint program — signed into existence by DoD and Australia’s Ministry of Defense Last November — is an Allied Prototyping Initiative (API) under the the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. It is being executed by the Air Force. And as with all things hypersonic, the service is not being super forthcoming about what exact technologies are being developed on what exact timetable.