Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division released an advance copy of the SR-72 hypersonic demonstrator aircraft, set to revolutionize military aerospace technology. As an apparent replacement for the retired SR-71 Blackbird, the SR-72 comes designed to offer speeds and capabilities previously unattainable in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike operations.
The SR-72 will be about 60 feet in length and shall be an optionally piloted flight research vehicle. One shall include a single, full-scale engine that will fly at Mach 6, more than twice the SR-71’s speed. The work on the aircraft is forecast to start in 2018, with the demonstrator’s first flight occurring in 2023 and its full-scale service expected in 2030.
Since the retirement of SR-71 in 1998, it has become hard for Lockheed Martin to develop a successor. Experiences and data gathered from the running of Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, at Mach 20, are instrumental in fine-tuning the design for SR-72.
The SR-72 will be loaded with the most advanced hypersonic technology, and with hypersonic missiles, such as Lockheed Martin’s High-Speed Strike Weapon, it will be able to hit targets across a continent in under an hour. Its high speed is sure to avoid protection against airspaces, so the plane will turn into an asset for modern warfare.
The SR-72 propulsion system will be a turbine-based combined cycle engine developed in cooperation with Aerojet Rocketdyne. According to the company, this system is supposed to give the aircraft cruise speeds of Mach 6 by transitioning from a turbine engine to a dual-mode ramjet. Subscale ground tests have already demonstrated the feasibility of this technology.
NASA has also awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to conduct a study into the feasibility of developing a hypersonic propulsion system for the SR-72. According to this study, the aim was to confirm that a Dual-mode ramjet could ignite at as low a speed as Mach 2.5. This would fill the gap between turbine and ramjet technologies.
The SR-72 program dovetails perfectly into the hypersonic roadmap of the US Air Force, as the latter aims to provide hypersonic ISR and strike capabilities by 2030. The potential of the aircraft to either snoop around or launch weapons before air defenses have time to warn of its presence brings a tectonic shift in military aviation.
The fact that Lockheed Martin is ready to invest in the research and development of the SR-72 means that the company is confident about its future. Though it also admits that significant funding by the government would be required for further development to take place, the SR-72 is going to be the start of a new hypersonic military aircraft race, which may redefine the contours of the military aerospace technology world into being.