The U.S. Air Force has hired Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to develop experimental low-cost cruise missiles that can act as a swarm in order to better navigate through or overwhelm enemy defense networks.

As part of the project, nicknamed Gray Wolf, the service also wants a modular weapon that can readily accept updates and upgrades, as well as different payloads, ranging from conventional explosive warheads to electronic warfare packages.

On Dec. 18, 2017, the Pentagon announced the Air Force had awarded Lockheed Martin a $110 million contract for the Gray Wolf science and technology effort in its daily contract announcements. On Dec. 20, 2017, the notice said the service had made an identical deal with Northrop Grumman. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force base is in charge of the project.

“Lockheed Martin’s concept for the Gray Wolf missile will be an affordable, counter-IAD [integrated air defense] missile that will operate efficiently in highly contested environments,” Hady Mourad, the director of the Advanced Missiles Program for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said in a press release the firm put out on Dec. 27, 2017. “Using the capabilities envisioned for later spirals, our system is being designed to maximize modularity, allowing our customer to incorporate advanced technologies such as more lethal warheads or more fuel-efficient engines, when those systems become available.”

According to Lockheed Martin, the contracts cover the first of four development phases, which will run through late 2019. The official contract announcements indicated that the Air Force expected the complete effort to wrap up in 2024. Northrop Grumman has not yet released its own official statement on its participation in the Gray Wolf program.

An F-16 test aircraft will be the first to demonstrate the Gray Wolf missiles. The goal is to make the weapons compatible with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force’s F-15E Strike Eagle, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18s, as well as the B-1 Bone, B-2 Spirit, and B-52 bombers.

Otherwise, the Air Force has offered few in the way of specifics about the project. This isn’t particularly surprising for a science and technology effort, which will focus on exploring new concepts rather than producing a final production design.

In April 2017, Jack Blackhurst, who is both director of AFRL’s Plans and Programs Directorate and head of the laboratory’s Air Force Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office, offered important details in a briefing at the National Defense Industry Association’s annual Science and Engineering Technology Conference. According to the presentation, each of the spiral development phases will run for 18 months.

The basic technology goals break down into two separate lines of effort. The Air Force is interested in a weapon system that is low-cost and has a relatively short manufacturing time, even in small quantities. In addition, the missiles have to be capable of semi-autonomous, networked operation in order to defeat integrated air defense networks. This latter point is an increasingly important considering as the U.S. military increasingly has to take these defenses into consideration with regards to potential near-peer enemies, such as Russia or China, and smaller hostile powers, including Iran and North Korea.

Source: The Drive