It is worrying that the United States lags behind China in the field of hypersonic engines. Additive technologies—3D printing with metals and alloys that will shorten design, prototyping, testing, and production time—should help narrow the gap and move forward. For this, the Pentagon signed a $22 million contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne. Aerojet needs to produce a prototype hypersonic engine and provide mass production technology.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has long used additive technology in the production of a number of rockets and jet engines, including the AR1, RL10, RS-25, Bantam, as well as propulsion components for MPS-120 CubeSat satellites and NASA’s Orion manned vehicle. “lunar” spacecraft and for. In the field of additive manufacturing, Aerojet collaborated with other Pentagon research organizations (AFRL, DARPA, and eventually NASA). It is therefore no surprise that Aerojet was invited to the GAMMA-H program to develop a technical process for the production of a direct-flow hypersonic engine using advanced 3D printing methods.

“Aerojet Rocketdyne will combine several critical steps in the integrated jet engine manufacturing process under the GAMMA-H contract. [виробничий] Schedule and cost effectiveness related to reducing supply chain fragmentation, – said Aerojet Rocketdyne president Ross Niebergall (Ross Niebergall). “Optimization of processes will allow increasing part throughput and reducing the number of processing stages, which will lead to increased production speed and reduced costs.”

The last failure for the United States was the unsuccessful test of the ARRW hypersonic missile on March 13, 2024. Russia and China are actively developing hypersonic weapons and using them in practice; The United States does not have a single hypersonic missile in its arsenal. The implementation of the GAMMA-H program offers hope to make up for lost time.