Monday, November 24, 2025

U.S. Army's Dark Eagle Hypersonic Program


Closes Gap with China, Russia Despite Technical Hurdles and Cost Overruns

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

The U.S. Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), officially designated Dark Eagle in April 2025, reached a critical milestone with successful December 2024 and April 2025 flight tests, positioning the service to field its first operational battery by fiscal year 2025 end. However, cost overruns exceeding $150 million for the first battery, lingering questions about operational lethality, and the technical challenge of achieving precision conventional strike capability underscore programmatic difficulties as China and Russia maintain multi-year operational leads with deployed hypersonic systems. Unlike Chinese and Russian systems potentially armed with nuclear warheads, U.S. hypersonic weapons are explicitly designed for conventional payloads, requiring significantly greater accuracy and presenting more demanding technical development challenges.

Strategic Context and the Conventional-Nuclear Divide

The Dark Eagle deployment represents the United States' bid to close a capability gap in a domain where adversaries have established operational precedents. China's DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile system, featuring the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle and operational since 2019, glides at Mach 5-10 speeds while performing evasive maneuvers designed to defeat missile defense engagements. Russia has deployed the Kinzhal air-launched missile (operational since 2017), the Avangard boost-glide vehicle (December 2019), and the Zircon naval cruise missile (serial production began 2024), with combat employment in Ukraine demonstrating operational maturity.

A critical distinction separates these programs. Conventional warheads require much greater accuracy to compensate for their significantly lower explosive power compared to nuclear weapons—modern nuclear warheads are so powerful that even poor accuracy is often acceptable, and many accuracy-enhancing technologies are not deployed on nuclear-armed missiles because there's little benefit to enhanced precision.

China's DF-17/DF-ZF is officially described by Chinese commentators as carrying a conventional warhead, though U.S. intelligence considers it nuclear-capable, creating strategic uncertainty about its true role. Russia's Avangard is explicitly nuclear-capable and mounted on ICBMs, while the Kinzhal could eventually be fitted with nuclear warheads, though it has been used conventionally in Ukraine.

This warhead distinction directly impacts technical requirements. Evidence from Ukraine suggests Russian systems like Iskander achieve accuracies of 30-70 meters, with one Russian journalist observing that "The Iskander as well as other Russian non-strategic missiles can be truly effective only with a nuclear warhead—apparently the way it is intended to primarily be used in any peer-to-peer conflict." By contrast, the U.S. Dark Eagle is believed to require precision within meters CEP to effectively destroy hardened targets with conventional warheads, while the Chinese DF-17 has demonstrated similar meter-level accuracy in testing.

Achieving this precision presents formidable challenges because hypersonic weapons spend most of their flight time at low altitudes through unpredictable atmospheric forces, subjected to gravity anomalies, unpredictable winds, variable air density, and immense surface heating that scours away material and alters aerodynamics, degrading control.

System Architecture and Joint Development

The Dark Eagle integrates a Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), based on the Alternate Re-Entry System developed by the Army and Sandia National Laboratories, with a Navy-designed two-stage solid rocket booster to create the All Up Round plus Canister (AUR+C). Dynetics, a Leidos subsidiary, produces C-HGB assemblies in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories for Army, Navy, and Missile Defense Agency applications, while Lockheed Martin serves as system integrator with Northrop Grumman providing booster propulsion.

Each LRHW battery comprises four Transporter Erector Launchers on modified M870A4 trailers, each equipped with two AUR+Cs for eight total missiles, plus a Battery Operations Center and support vehicle. The system delivers a reported range exceeding 1,725 miles with speeds beyond Mach 5, providing mobile "shoot-and-scoot" capability designed to penetrate anti-access/area denial environments.

Mission sets include enemy radar and air defense nodes, command and control bunkers, mobile ballistic missile platforms, logistics depots, runways, and naval port facilities—targets requiring the precision that conventional payloads demand.

Testing Progression and Recent Milestones

The program experienced significant setbacks, including an October 2021 booster failure and June 2022 test failure, leading to schedule delays that pushed initial fielding from FY2023 to FY2025. Critical breakthroughs came with successful end-to-end flight tests conducted in June 2024 from Hawaii's Pacific Missile Range Facility and December 2024 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the latter representing the first live-fire event integrating the Battery Operations Center and Transporter Erector Launcher.

An April 2025 test launch from Cape Canaveral provided additional validation, though detailed results remain under evaluation. The Army formally designated the system Dark Eagle on April 24, 2025, with nomenclature emphasizing the weapon's ability to "disintegrate adversary capabilities" while evoking speed, stealth, and precision.

Cost and Lethality Concerns

According to June 2025 Government Accountability Office assessments, the estimated cost of fielding the first battery increased $150 million in one year, from $2.54 billion in January 2024 to $2.69 billion in January 2025, attributed to rising missile costs and investigations following test failures. A 2023 Congressional Budget Office study estimated unit costs at approximately $41 million per missile—exceeding the $31 million Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile—though Army officials express hope for cost reductions as production quantities increase.

Some analysts argue that maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRVs) on ballistic missiles could provide similar capability to hypersonics while avoiding heating problems through high-altitude flight, with Congressional Budget Office analysis finding both systems could provide needed "speed, accuracy, range, and survivability," though hypersonic weapons "could cost one-third more to procure and field."

More critically, questions about combat effectiveness persist. The 2024 Director of Operational Test and Evaluation report concluded "there is not enough data available to assess the operational effectiveness, lethality, suitability, and survivability of the LRHW system," warning that "uncertainty in weaponeering tools could result in excessive employment requirements or failure to meet warfighter objectives." While the Navy conducted separate warhead arena and sled tests in FY2024, the Pentagon cannot yet make adequate determination of operational lethality, potentially requiring multiple expensive missiles per target.

This lethality uncertainty reflects the demanding precision requirements for conventional hypersonics—a challenge that nuclear-armed systems largely avoid.

Deployment Plans and Regional Posture

The 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington—part of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force in the Indo-Pacific-oriented I Corps—received designation to operate the first battery. Program officials confirmed the second battery remains on schedule for fielding in fourth quarter FY2026 as part of the Middle Tier Acquisition rapid fielding effort.

In August 2025, the United States deployed Dark Eagle systems to Australia for the first time as part of Exercise Talisman Saber, marking significant enhancement of allied strike capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region where strategic competition with China intensifies.

The DF-17's estimated 1,800-2,500 kilometer range places U.S. bases across Guam, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines within strike envelope, with Beijing potentially employing the system to crater runways and neutralize American airpower projection in conflict's opening phases.

Navy's Conventional Prompt Strike Integration

The Navy's parallel Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) program shares the C-HGB and booster with Dark Eagle, with integration planned for Zumwalt-class destroyers and Virginia-class submarines. Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, director of strategic programs, indicated the Navy targets 2027 for initial CPS testing aboard USS Zumwalt, following completion of modifications at HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding that replaced the destroyer's 155mm Advanced Gun Systems with four large-diameter tubes accommodating up to 12 missiles.

Each Zumwalt Advanced Payload Module holds three CPS missiles, while Virginia-class Block V submarines with Virginia Payload Modules could carry up to 28 missiles, with initial submarine deployment projected for 2028-2029. The Navy completed a critical cold gas-launched test flight for CPS in third quarter FY2024, validating the ship and submarine cold-launch ejection system designed for the large hypersonic missiles.

Adversary Capabilities and Combat Experience

China's emphasis on hypersonic development represents a natural evolution of precision strike capabilities dating to lessons from the first Gulf War and 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, with systems designed to support counter-intervention objectives against U.S. regional forces.

Russia's operational experience with hypersonic weapons in Ukraine, including confirmed Kinzhal intercepts by U.S.-supplied Patriot systems in May 2023, demonstrates that advanced air defense networks can engage some hypersonic threats under certain conditions, though compressed engagement timelines and maneuverability make successful interception difficult and unreliable with current technology.

The Ukrainian experience also revealed accuracy limitations in Russian systems, supporting the assessment that precision conventional strike missions—the U.S. focus—demand capabilities beyond those required for nuclear delivery.

Path Forward

Army Chief of Staff General Randy George indicated in June 2025 testimony to Armed Services Committees that additional tests were planned for summer 2025 with long-range missiles representing a fraction of previous test costs. A flight test of slightly modified missile configuration is scheduled for fourth quarter FY2025 as the program progresses toward broader deployment through the mid-2020s.

The Dark Eagle program represents the Army's critical contribution to joint hypersonic strike capabilities as great power competition drives urgent modernization of long-range precision fires. The technical achievement of developing meter-level accuracy in the challenging hypersonic flight regime—more demanding than the headline-grabbing speeds—may ultimately prove more strategically significant than the velocity itself.

While cost pressures, lethality uncertainties, and a multi-year lag behind adversary deployments remain concerns, successful 2024-2025 flight tests position the United States to field a conventional hypersonic capability that adversaries currently lack: the ability to conduct precise, non-nuclear strategic strikes against defended targets with minimal warning. This conventional precision focus, though technically harder and more expensive, avoids the nuclear escalation risks inherent in dual-capable systems and provides decision-makers with options below the nuclear threshold.

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U.S. Army's Dark Eagle Hypersonic Program

Closes Gap with China, Russia Despite Technical Hurdles and Cost Overruns BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) The U.S. Army's Long-Range Hyper...