Cummings, ATRX team to develop hypersonic drones

If tests prove out, ATRX’s engines will power a Cummings Aerospace-designed UAS with hypersonic flight. (ATRX)

LONDON — Cummings Aerospace has signed a new agreement with propulsion specialist ATRX to rapidly design and develop affordable supersonic and hypersonic unmanned systems, company executives told Breaking Defense ahead of this week’s announcement.

The deal will see Cummings build out large-scale versions of its Hellhound UAS, equipped with ATRX’s Air Turbo Rocket (ATR) to undertake subsonic, supersonic and ultimately hypersonic flight tests.

Speaking to Breaking Defense on Feb 5, company executives laid out how the partnership will explore multi-mission capabilities, which could include the integration of weapons, specialist payloads and even counter-hypersonic capabilities.

A first, vertically-launched test flight is expected to take place in the next 18-24 months, executives said, with a Hellhound UAS up to 12x larger in size compared to the loitering munition variant due to participate in the US Army’s Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) loitering munition competition later this year.

Follow-on development cycles are expected to occur every 18-24 months, as the team looks to integrate increasing levels in complexity across the program.

Cummings Aerospace CEO Sheila Cummings said the strategic alignment with ATRX is designed to offer customers more affordable, flexible and rapidly prototyped solutions.

“The modern battlefield demands systems that are capable of flying faster and further into contested airspace. This partnership with ATRX will allow us to develop ATR-powered UAS that can offer both of these characteristics in a single vehicle, at an affordable price,” she told Breaking Defense.

“We have concepts for hypersonic but have not built them yet. A lot of our focus is on hypersonic and rapid capability for our warfighters and we are seeing this as an ideal time to bring these ideas to industry and customers, to capture research and development funding to bring to a technology readiness level,” she added before stating that potential customers had already mentioned interest in a supersonic UAS capability.

“It’s all part of the whole standoff objective, right? So the farther back, the faster you can get to a particular location. And sometimes, in order to maximize that standoff range, you need more propulsion power, which means you need more speed. So supersonic is definitely among those capabilities that has been mentioned for UAS solutions,” Cummings said before adding that counter-hypersonic capability was another concept being considered by engineers across both companies.

ATRX’s CEO Felix Bustos III confirmed his company is currently working up a prototype hypersonic engine, which he suggested is a version of a Ramjet.

“It allows capability to go from standstill on a runway or vertical take-off to Mach 5. We have the hardware in development and are on a fast track to develop that capability which will provide a very unique capability for the warfighter,” he told Breaking Defense, before confirming it would be “highly maneuverable in flight.”

Cummings Aerospace could also support ATRX’s development of the Hummingbird space plane, which Bustos described as a “wholly different mission set” to Hellhound. The Hummingbird is being designed with a view to deploying satellites from low earth orbit.

“Data obtained through the whole [Hellhound] program directly applies to next phase which is the Hummingbird space plane. A mix of government and private financing will allow us to move fast,” he said.

“Being able to validate the performance of our ATRs using a bespoke UAS based on a flight-proven airframe will de-risk and accelerate our space plane development efforts. Space planes are very much needed with more than 50,000, mostly commercial, satellites that need to be launched into orbit in the next few years,” he concluded.