A new British hypersonic weapon demonstrator is expected to be delivered by 2030 as part of the Ministry of Defence’s developing hypersonics programme, according to a written parliamentary answer.
Responding to a question from Conservative MP James Cartlidge, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the MOD intends to deliver a hypersonic weapon demonstrator within the decade through a programme designed to accelerate development using new procurement approaches.
The initiative follows a February announcement that the UK had accelerated development of hypersonic missile technologies through a new contract aimed at advancing key capabilities.
Pollard told Parliament that the programme is attempting to move faster than traditional defence procurement processes by using what he described as innovative commercial mechanisms and a broader industrial and academic supply chain.
“Through innovative procurement practices and rapid commercial mechanisms that harness the breadth of the UK’s industrial and academic supply chain, the Ministry of Defence’s Hypersonics programme intends to deliver a weapon demonstrator by 2030,” he said.
The minister explained that the programme is designed to adopt a more flexible development model, focusing on early technology maturation, prototyping and testing rather than following the traditional defence procurement cycle.
“With a mandate to ‘do differently’, the programme deviates from traditional procurement sequencing and adopts early technology maturation, prototyping and system testing,” Pollard added.
He said the project would follow an agile, spiral development approach aligned with the Defence Industrial Strategy while still maintaining the MOD’s formal approvals process.
However, Pollard noted that the programme remains at an early stage, currently within the Strategic Outline Case phase. As a result, the overall costs of the capability and the eventual in-service date have not yet been finalised.
Hmm,, demonstrator and in-service date mentioned.
So do we take it that if the demonstrator works there will might be a production order?
If they do get a demonstrator working by 2030 I’ll be very impressed…
Cheers CR
We see so many announcements of late one could start to think people are taking our lack of investment in defence over a generation or two serious and are investing to fix it finally….
No I know, I must stop being silly, this is just ‘noise’.
Is it required to hit a moving target in the contract? Outlandish example maybe but a hypersonic vehicle re entering low altitude at high speed sounds like the Apollo capsule in the old days, loss of communication and ships all over the place looking for the splash down.
Trump’s slam-down of Starmer is going to rock Downing Street into getting full control over defence budgets. Like the Mayor of London, Donald won’t stop pitching smelly things at the UK Prime Minister at every opportunity. As far as Trump is concerned, a good friend disallowed a golf shot in a four-ball friendly, and he won’t forgive him. From now on the UK must determine what it can achieve using European partners to build up the British Armed Forces and reduce reliance on US tech. The UK can’t be bullied by Trump’s government, and we should give Starmer his due for not immediately folding to Orange Man. Now publish the DIP and get to work.
I read a rumour of DIP next week, probably a red herring but we can hope. Also it looks like we might be getting laser guided rockets for the typhoon, unfortunately that’s a US weapon, but better than nothing when the European equivalent doesn’t exist.
FYI Thales makes laser guided rockets
The APKI laser guided rockets are decent. Like LMM/ Martlett only cheaper. Not surprised we are thinking of fitting them onto typhoon. Although they’d be useful for F35 fleet as well
I’m actually betting on “Rachel from Accounts” setting out the fiscal plan to increase Defence spending for the next 4 FY’s on Tuesday during Treasury Oral Questions, 11:30am (tabled question no 5 is interesting).
Then next Monday for Healey to announce the DIP during the first scheduled Defence Oral questions at 14:00 since last year when he announced the delay.
Whats interesting and very signifiant is the Treasury session only dropped in this week and all the questions were tabled after her Spring Statement on the 4th. It’s very odd for a Chancellor to make a statement one week after which she answered questions the and schedule another session a week later (gives them time to analyse the OBR Forecast is my hunch).
I may be completely wrong but all the Bread Crumbs are there and she does have the Fiscal headroom to it. I’ve read the OBR and IMHO she has £2/3 billion she can spend this year and announce an increase of @£4 Billion pa for next 3 years and that gets us up to 3% of GDP by end of this Parliament.
Timing is really important as the new FY is rapidly approaching and if they do nothing the July NATO conference will be a Bloodbath !
FYI according to NATO figures out of the 32 members of NATO we are in 31st position of actually doing anything to meet the New NATO agreed target of 3.5/1.5% !
Or she just says Noamd we are back to square 1 🤷🏻
No, Starmer didn’t immediately fold to Trump. He held out for two days. My, but you Brits are delusional. You’re the laughingstock of the world and no country, European or otherwise, wants to be militarily aligned with a country unable and unwilling to defend its own citizens and air bases.
In the real world you’ll find no country wants to be aligned with US fascism. Your handler hasn’t spoon fed that line to you though…
Israel !
what are you on about?
plenty of countries in Europe have very good defense ties with the UK
just another internet malcontent spewing his venom – jog on muppet
Defence.
It’s not fair to blame UK forces over Starmer’s Horlicks. Our forces are far from a laughing stock; ask the Norwegians, Belgians, Dutch, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and liberated West Germans, just to name a few, if they think we are a joke.
No, the laughing stock of the world is the country who voted in an orange paedophile with the attention span and temperament of a stroppy toddler.
This is Israel’s war Pk and they are expecting everyone else to fall into line. Trump and Hesgeth are happy to fall into line because US establishment culture is strongly influence by the Israeli lobby. Starmer and the European leaders are not. Trump’s behaviour is divisive. He is Netanyu’s poodle and he is tearing the United States apart.
Good summary. Why anyone in the UK would expect us to fall into line like a good little boy and place our forces at risk to support a war which America is waging at the behest of its only true ally*, Israel, is beyond me. They probably think that riding on America’s coat-tails makes us ‘globally relevant’ and enables us to ‘punch above our weight’ which is self-delusional nonsense. Have they no pride?
They treat us as no more than a reserve force to do their bidding but as we can see from some posters on sites like this, some people are only too happy for that to be the case.
*And if anyone doubts that Israel is America’s only true ally just consider how much America does for Israel and how little it gets back. Israel rules the roost in that amazing lopsided relationship. By contrast, the ‘special relationship’ we supposedly have with the USA is very transactional and heavily weighted in their favour.
I see, a demonstrator. So I expect after that the usual fluffing and flaffing for 20 years or so of arguments and semi-cancellations. Can we expect a couple of actual functioning missiles in service by 2050/55 with this government?.
How many more UK Hypersonic projects are on the Go? France UK? Australia UK? Looks like its now UK in Splendid Isolation!
So a demonstrater in four years and then…..?
So the program is at the ‘Strategic Outline Case’ phase – assume that means it’s still a proposal at the early project definition stage (a paper project) and they aim to have a demonstrator flying by 2030 in 4 years? That’s a pretty ambitious timeline. Assume also there is a budget allocation for technology development and testing? Good luck with that.
Australia has been working on hypersonic (scramjet) technology since 2007 through the HiFire lab development and demonstrator program led by the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This is now being developed into an operational precision strike weapon (HACM) via the SciFire joint program with the U.S. for launch from Super Hornet and P8 platforms. First test flights of weapon expected in 2027.
Brisbane based Hypersonix Launch Systems (again capitalizing on UQ research program and its innovative T4 ‘shock’ testing tunnel) in February this year successfully tested its Dart AE vehicle designed for speeds in the Mach 5 to 10 range. Unlike the SciFire program which is specifically weapons focused Hypersonix’s program is focused on developing low cost reusable space launch vehicles using hydrogen powered SPARTAN scramjets.
Interestingly the test vehicle was boosted into orbit by a Rocket Lab launcher developed by a New Zealand company which has a thriving business with multiple successful launches from its New Zealand and now U.S. (Virginia) launch pads. Australia’s Gilmore Space company is about to join them with rocket boosters for payloads into low earth orbit (LEO)
Two fundamental points here. These Australian and New Zealand projects have been decades in the making so the UK timelines appear very optimistic.
Secondly there is a wealth of expertise down under in fellow Commonwealth countries that could be called on to develop both hypersonic weapons systems and sovereign long range ballistic missiles more rapidly if the UK were prepared to partner rather than reinvent the wheel.
It’s a similar story with UK ambitions to go solo to develop an autonomous wingman (so called collaborative combat aircraft) when Australia already has an advanced program with Ghost Bat. At this rate the RAF will still be studying options while the RAAF is flying armed Ghost Bats in combat alongside F35s and Super Hornets.
Because it’s all grandstanding bollocks, until proven otherwise, OZ.
The Little Boy who Cried Wolf and HMG go rather well together.
Well done down under for having come so far with your programme, where UK politicians continue to shout into the wind at how world class we are.
On this one, as Geoff says, and then?
Hi M8, The really stupid thing is that we are “going it alone” yet again with a very limited budget, dear god even France doesn’t try to develop everything they need. We have missed the boat on sp many developments but we still have something to offer such as integration and industrial capacity (which is Australias biggest issue).
Why isn’t anyone leveraging development of Hypersonic weapons and Loyal wingman with Australia and inviting them to join GCAP, it’s so damned obvious ? And we actually have a signed treaty called “AUKUS” that has pillar 2 which covers it all quite nicely.
I can tell you right now pillar 1 is tabbing along quite nicely and there are dozens of Scientists / Engineers embedded here in the U.K learning about how to build and maintain SSN(A) and vice versa our folks are going down under to help train their apprentices and engineers.
Biggest problem is some of the buggers don’t want to come back 😳
Spot on it’s just plain daft !
Hang on, isn’t this one “dependent on the DIP” as well?
Latest news mate, I hear the laptop with the DIP on, was accidentally left on a bus.
The delay has been caused because Ken from the civil service has to search through London Transport lost property to find it..
Nobody has folded to Trump’s coercive demands. Not one single.Western or NATO member is participating in the USA/Israel pre-emptive attack on Iran, for good reasons:
1. A strike.on a sovereign nation is a.breach.of International law. To justify it, Iran would have had to attack the USA first or be verifiably on the point of doing so. Neither factor pertained. It is thus the legal equivalent of Russia invading Ukraine, or Hitler invading Poland, a wholly unacceptable breach of international law.
2. Members of NATO are allies, they are not colonies of the USA. Trump overreaches in playing the King emperor and throwing his weight around. If you want allies to participate in random, erratic actions, you would need.to diecuss it first, put forward your proposals, secure allied consent. Instead, you break off diplomatic talks with Iran, launch a major surprise attack and then come bleating that everyone else should stop what they’re doing and come to assist this maverick Israeli-inspired move.
3. Israel is not a member of NATO. It is not a Commonwealth member. It is not, given the number of ICC charges against its leaders, a close or particularly attractive ally. Why would any Western country rush to support an act of naked aggression by Israel? Particularly when it is widely accepted that this is primarily a domestic political play by Netanyahu aimed at trying to avoid defeat in the Israeli elections and thus propelling him into court to face serious financial fraud charges.
Ditto the USA’s POTUS, who appears particularly keen to distract from the Epstein files and equally keen to prevent MAGA defeat in the Midterms. Suffice it to say that no Western allies anywhere are going to commit to a major illegal war whose main real aim is to prevent Trump and Netanyahu getting a deserved kicking in their domestic elections.
We remember Israel’s part in the false WMD story that
I agree.
I think Starmer is a dithering, indecisive fool with no interest in defence at all.
Not a leader, but WHO is within the British establishment?
I think HMG should have acted much sooner in allocating forces, small as they are, to defend the Cyprus SBA. The US asked for permission weeks ago.
Their hesitance is typical of the U turning and lack of leadership shown in his time. Being reactive rather than proactive after the horse has bolted makes the UK look ridiculous and incompetent, and has shown politicians grandstanding for what it is, our cupboard is almost empty after decades of cuts.
However, he is right not to join offensive action, we have followed the US in their adventures for too long, clearly with zero thanks. My criticism of Starmer is over his handling of our own forces in this.
Iran’s leaders deserve every bomb and missile heading their way. No if’s or but’s. They are evil people who’ve been stirring up evil shit for a very long time.
Totally agree, cut the head off the Iranian Chicken, remove their nuclear ambitions and massively degrade their conventional ability, thus ‘permanently’ remove Irans ability to damage the world economy by attacking the straits of Hormuz.
Did you see the thousands of people from assorted Stop the War, SWP, Veterans for Peace, feminist groups, CND, Communists, Marxists, self loathing left wingers, and all the usual free Palestine demonstrators marching by the thousand across London?
Can someone tell me where they were when the Iranian regime was killing thousands of its people for protesting?
While women are punished for wanting better rights and for showing their hair?
WHERE WERE YOU?
Hypocrites, the lot of you.
The Rabble will never stop giving comfort to potential imminent enemies. Somehow they have to be made to pay for the chaos which must be considerable,they are causing to London’s economy.
Agreed they are giving a free pass to the Mullah Tyrants in charge in Iran who killed 30,000 for doing what the Rabble do every weekend.
Ironic.
There’s little need for this – spend the money elsewhere. The UK has far too many ‘in process’, undelivered long-range fires. FC/ASW, PrSM, collaboration with Germany, Brakestop, Nightfall, and now this sovereign hypersonic weapon.
I agree! The sheer number of shiny new ‘transformational” weapons sought by all 3 services is bewildering.
Given that we can barely afford the limited number of new equipments already in the pipeline, can’t see where all the extra dosh is going to come from for this additional transformational mega menu.
No wonder the DIP is held up, there must be an army of staffs debating staff targets and trying to cost a lot of new things that are currently little more than concepts or PowerPoints.