Artist's rendering of a hypersonic scramjet weapon. Raytheon/Northrop Grumman graphic via Raytheon's Twitter.
LE BOURGET, France—Northrop Grumman and Raytheon announced June 18 they are teaming up to develop hypersonic scramjet weapons.
Under the agreement, Northrop will develop scramjet combustors to power air-breathing hypersonic weapons developed by Raytheon.
The two companies are working under a $200 million Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept program through the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, according to a Northrop release.
Scramjet weapons use the missile’s high vehicle speed to forcibly compress the air it takes in before combustion to sustain flight.
The two companies announced the agreement at the Paris Air Show.
The Air Force has selected Raytheon and Lockheed to both develop HAWC weapons, along with Lockheed’s separate Tactical Boost-Glide weapon development.