Additive Manufacturing for Hypersonic Missile Warheads

Designing a warhead for high velocities is dramatically different than designing a normal warhead, as it needs to be shaped differently to ensure the fragmentation occurs as intended against the target.

Using decades of experience in developing and fielding advanced warheads, Orbital ATK has designed, built and validated a new missile warhead for hypersonic speeds in less than 60 days.

In words of Pat Nolan -Vice President and General Manager of Missile Products at Orbital ATK- “Successfully completing an R&D program in less than 60 days does not happen by accident. There are very few companies that can offer a similar combination of technical expertise and schedule responsiveness, and our deep heritage in high speed systems as well as warheads, fuzes and rocket motors, enables our team to develop innovative technologies that will ultimately help the warfighter be ready for challenges on the battlefield and able to execute their missions reliably, precisely and safely.”

Orbital ATK is a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies. The company designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation systems for customers around the world, both as a prime contractor and merchant supplier.

Its main products include:

• Advanced aerospace structures
• Launch vehicles and related propulsion systems
• Missile products, subsystems and defense electronics
• Precision weapons, armament systems and ammunition
• Satellites and associated space components and services

Headquartered in Dulles, Virginia, Orbital ATK employs approximately 14,000 people across the U.S. and in several international locations. 

Masten Space Systems Selected for NASA SBIR Phase 1 Award

Masten Space Systems of Mojave will pursue a project designed to better use Additive Manufacturing (AM) in the production of rocket engines with the help of NASA funding.

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Additive Manufacturing: ¿A Disruptive Threat?

Nowadays, policymakers on arms control are very worried that a technology used to make jewelry could also be used to make parts for a rocket engine, or any other stuff that goes into missiles.

Such capabilities might be attractive to terrorists, helping nonstate actors develop small missiles previously exclusive of advanced states.

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Additive Manufacturing with SiOC, key for hypersonic missiles

Scientists at the Aerospace Systems Directorate (ASD) searching for new thermocouple radiation shields, are very interested in the Silicon OxyCarbide (SiOC) because of its potential for building missiles capable to flight at continuous hypersonic speed.

Specifically, the refractory qualities of the SiOC, its ability to maintain strength and form at high temperatures, and the geometric complexity offered by Additive Manufacturing have a wide range of Air Force applications. This is the reason why nowadays, the ASD is researching into applications for the 3D printed SiOC under a Collaborative Research and Development – Material Transfer Agreement (CRADA-MTA) between the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Aerospace Systems Directorate and HRL Laboratories, a research center owned by Boeing and  General Motors Corporation.

AM-fueled missile proliferation: ¿How to address this threat?

Current exports-control regulations are not prepared to stop Additive Manufacturing (AM) from fueling arms proliferation in the near future: Their spectrum only captures a fraction of the critical equipment and digital data needed to manufacture arms with an AM console, because dual use goods, which they are, generally escape stricter export-controls. 

AM allows creating complex single-pieced shapes that cannot be achieved with subtractive methods, thus limiting the number of needed fixations and with it, the risk of failure. But their most critical feature in this case is that most AM technologies require only a digital model of the desired object, a “build-file” in the form of electronic data, in order to manufacture it almost instantly.

This means that, in theory, the owner of an AM console can manufacture virtually any object, including weapons and other “products that are subject to dual-use and arms exports control”, provided he owns the necessary build-files. And the problem is these build-files are of course extremely easy to transfer by electronic means, like e-mail or FTP for example. This is why AM poses such a challenge to existing exports-control regimes, because it has the potential to enable export control circumvention and contribute to illicit weapon programs.

Initiatives are definitely building up and SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) researchers strongly suggest to start by amending export control regimes so that they can include AM consoles and the equipment they require, especially laser beams and feedstock materials. Pointing out some obvious flaws in existing exports-control regimes, the SIPRI researchers find that when it comes to controlling transfers of missile production equipment, for example, the international Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) only limits sales of equipment whose exclusive function is to produce missile systems. Dual-use equipment, such as AM consoles, do not fall under this regulation. Identical issues also affect the transfer of the raw-materials used by the machines. However, the researchers also notice that the overall literature surrounding export controls is progressively opening to the inclusion of dual-use goods in their spectrum to address AM-fueled missile proliferation.