Military Labs Continue to Create World-Class Future Tech by Cheryl Pellerin
World-class scientists and engineers have been creating cutting-edge technologies for warfighters at military laboratories for nearly 100 years, and a Sept. 28 hearing on Capitol Hill focused on technologies being developed today for future wars.
Laboratory directors from all three services addressed innovation through science and engineering in support of military operations during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee.
Testifying before the panel were Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert D. McMurry, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory; Dr. Philip Perconti, acting director of the Army Research Laboratory, Dr. Jeffery P. Holland, director of the Army Engineer Research and Development Center of the Army Corps of Engineers; and Dr. Edward R. Franchi, acting director of research at the Naval Research Laboratory.
Air Force Research Lab
In his comments before the panel, McMurry said 99 years of technology breakthroughs have contributed to or supported every major operational Air Force platform.
“Just as the laboratory provided key innovations in support of the first and second offset strategies, I’m pleased to confirm that our game-changing technologies are already providing foundation and support for realizing a third offset strategy,” he said.
The president’s fiscal year 2017 budget request for Air Force science and technology is about $2.5 billion, a 4.5-percent increase over the fiscal 2016 request, the general said.
An artist’s concept of the Air Force Research Laboratory/Boeing X-51A during flight. The X-51 WaveRider is an unmanned research scramjet for hypersonic flight. The X-51 program was a cooperative effort by the Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Agency, NASA, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The program was managed by the Aerospace Systems Directorate in the Air Force Research Laboratory. X-51 technology will be used in the AFRL’s high-speed strike weapon, a Mach 5-plus missile that’s scheduled to enter service in the mid-2020s. Air Force Research Laboratory graphic
An artist’s concept of the Air Force Research Laboratory/Boeing X-51A during flight. The X-51 WaveRider is an unmanned research scramjet for hypersonic flight. The X-51 program was a cooperative effort by the Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Agency, NASA, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The program was managed by the Aerospace Systems Directorate in the Air Force Research Laboratory. X-51 technology will be used in the AFRL’s high-speed strike weapon, a Mach 5-plus missile that’s scheduled to enter service in the mid-2020s.
“The budget request provides funding for the small advanced-capability missile; the low-cost delivery vehicle; the high-speed strike weapon demonstration; component weapons technology; and for position, navigation and timing technologies in direct support of the third offset,” McMurry said.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is investing heavily in basic, applied and advanced research, he added, and is continuing to focus on “game-changers” such as autonomous systems, unmanned systems, nanotechnology, hypersonics and directed energy.
Air Force Materiel Command recently established a strategic development planning and experimentation office to reinvigorate development planning at the Air Force enterprise level, McMurry told the panel.
“The new effort will shift the Air Force from platform-centric to strategy-based multidomain solutions spanning air, space and cyberspace … [and] will support enterprise capability collaboration teams by providing modeling and simulation, war gaming and data to facilitate development planning for the highest-priority Air Force mission areas,” he said.