US Army, Navy test hypersonic missile capable of speeds above Mach 5

US Army, Navy test hypersonic missile capable of speeds above Mach 5

Defense Analysis April 6, 2026

HYPERSONIC WEAPONS • LONG-RANGE FIRES

Army–Navy Hypersonic Team Scores Third Consecutive Flight-Test Win, Eyes Operational Fielding

A March 26 launch from Cape Canaveral advances the Common Hypersonic Glide Body toward full bi-service deployment as USS Zumwalt prepares to carry the first sea-based load and the Army fields Battery 1 to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force.

Bottom Line Up Front

A joint U.S. Army–Navy team successfully launched a common hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on March 26, 2026 — the program’s third confirmed end-to-end flight success following milestone tests in June and December 2024. The weapon, built around the Lockheed Martin/Dynetics Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), is shared by the Army’s ground-launched Dark Eagle (LRHW) and the Navy’s ship- and submarine-launched Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS). Battery 1 of the Army’s Dark Eagle has begun fielding to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force at Joint Base Lewis-McChord; Battery 2 is scheduled for Q4 FY2026. USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) completed CPS installation in late 2025 and is returning to sea this year, supported by a new $1.356 billion Lockheed Martin contract through FY2032. Both services still face GAO-flagged gaps in lethality data and magazine-depth constraints at current per-unit costs of approximately $41 million.

The March 26 Test

The U.S. Army’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Fires, in partnership with the Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Strategic Systems Programs, conducted the launch from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Department of War’s April 2 press release confirmed the event but provided no trajectory, range, or terminal performance data, consistent with the program’s pattern of minimal public disclosure about classified system parameters.

Pre-launch indicators visible to outside observers included activity by the Missile Defense Agency’s two High Altitude Observatory aircraft — HALO 52 and HALO 53, modified Gulfstream 550s — departing Melbourne Executive Airport, and active NOTAMs establishing debris-exclusion zones in the Atlantic. U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security maritime warnings were consistent with those issued before previous hypersonic launches from the same complex.

The test is believed to have exercised the complete All-Up Round Plus Canister (AUR+C) configuration: a two-stage solid-rocket booster mated to the C-HGB inside a sealed launch canister. After booster burnout and stage separation, the unpowered glide body transitions into a depressed, maneuverable hypersonic trajectory — a flight profile providing lateral and vertical maneuvering capability fundamentally different from the parabolic arc of a conventional ballistic re-entry vehicle, greatly complicating adversary intercept calculations.

“The Army and Navy partnership to field a common hypersonic missile across land- and sea-based platforms supports the National Defense Strategy by accelerating timelines, reducing costs, and delivering a highly survivable capability to defeat time-sensitive, heavily defended, and high-value targets at speeds exceeding Mach 5.” — U.S. Department of War, April 2, 2026

Program Architecture and Industrial Base

The C-HGB is the program’s central technological element and the key enabler of the joint-service commonality strategy. Developed from Sandia National Laboratories’ Alternate Re-Entry System lineage, the glide body is built by Dynetics (a Leidos company), while Lockheed Martin serves as the booster developer, prime integrator, and primary production facility at its Courtland, Alabama plant, where rocket motors and glide bodies are assembled into the completed all-up round. Northrop Grumman provides booster components. Leidos and General Atomics have also contributed to C-HGB development.

The Army’s LRHW configuration packages the AUR+C on a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck-towed M870 trailer configured as a Transporter Erector Launcher. A single battery consists of four TELs — each carrying two canisters — plus a Battery Operations Center and a BOC support vehicle, for a total of eight missiles per battery. The system is road-mobile and C-17 air-transportable, enabling rapid repositioning for survivability and forward deployment.

The Navy’s CPS variant uses a cold-gas ejection system to expel the AUR+C from large-diameter vertical launch tubes before first-stage ignition — an approach that protects the launch platform from exhaust and thermal effects. USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) has been fitted with four 87-inch-diameter tubes forward, replacing the ship’s twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems, each tube capable of housing three AUR+Cs in an Advanced Payload Module canister for a total magazine of 12 CPS rounds per ship.

Fielding Status: Army

Battery 1, assigned to B Battery, 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment — the Long-Range Fires Battalion of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force under I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington — has begun the formal fielding process. Missile deliveries to the unit commenced in late 2025 on a rolling basis as Lockheed Martin completed individual AUR+C assemblies, with the Army describing fielding activities as expected to conclude in early 2026. The GAO’s 2025 Weapons Systems Annual Assessment noted that producing a full battery set of eight hypersonic missiles was expected to take approximately eleven months from resumption of assembly.

Initial Operational Capability criteria for the LRHW system remain under senior-leader review, with the Army declining to specify an IOC date. The system underwent its first overseas deployment in July 2025, when two TELs from the Hawaii-based 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force deployed to Australia’s Northern Territory for Exercise Talisman Sabre 25, marking the first operation of the Dark Eagle system west of the International Date Line.

Battery 2, incorporating minor missile modifications validated in additional testing, remains on schedule for fielding in Q4 FY2026 per the GAO assessment. Battery 3 production is funded across FY2026–2027. The Army has not released a total buy figure but has indicated intent to equip Batteries 4 and 5 in FY2027–2028 as the 4th and 5th MDTFs are established. The MTA rapid acquisition track formally closes by Q4 FY2028. FY2026 Army RDT&E funding for LRHW is $513 million.

Fielding Status: Navy

USS Zumwalt returned to sea following a three-year yard period at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where CPS integration work was completed and the APM canister installation marked complete in November 2025. The ship is expected to conduct builder’s sea trials and system-activation testing in 2026, with at-sea live-fire testing of CPS projected for 2027.

A $1.356 billion contract modification awarded to Lockheed Martin on approximately March 31, 2026 (Contract N00030-22-C-1025, managed by Navy Strategic Systems Programs) funds program management, engineering, systems integration, long-lead materials, testing, and specialized tooling through September 30, 2032. The majority of work — 55 percent — will be executed in Denver, Colorado; 16 percent in Sunnyvale, California; and 8 percent in Magna, Utah, with the remainder distributed across Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and other states.

USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) is scheduled to enter dry dock for CPS integration in 2027. USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) integration work is already under way. Integration of CPS aboard Block V Virginia-class attack submarines via the Virginia Payload Module is targeted for FY2028, contingent on VPM delivery schedules from General Dynamics Electric Boat. The Navy’s FY2026 CPS RDT&E request is $798.3 million.

Operational Context and Strategic Rationale

The joint LRHW/CPS program was conceived to close a capability gap against near-peer adversaries who have already deployed hypersonic glide vehicle systems. China’s DF-17, featuring a DF-ZF maneuvering re-entry vehicle, was publicly unveiled in 2019 and is assessed as operational. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has fielded the YJ-21 ship-launched hypersonic anti-ship missile, and the PLA Air Force has tested an air-launched YJ-21 variant on H-6 bombers. Beijing displayed additional hypersonic systems including the YJ-15, YJ-17, YJ-19, and YJ-20 at recent parades; the YJ-19’s visible air inlet suggests a scramjet propulsion mode. Russia has operationally employed the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine.

Against this backdrop, the LRHW/CPS architecture provides theater commanders with a prompt conventional strike option against heavily defended, time-sensitive, or high-value targets — including adversary integrated air defense nodes, C2 infrastructure, mobile ballistic missile TELs, and maritime assets — with flight times measured in minutes. From Guam, the system’s reported range of approximately 1,725 miles (2,775 km) places significant portions of China’s eastern seaboard and South China Sea installations within reach. Combined with CPS aboard stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyers, the multi-domain, multi-axis strike picture complicates adversary defensive planning considerably.

The Pentagon’s FY2026 budget allocates $6.5 billion for hypersonic and conventional precision weapons acquisition, with $3.9 billion earmarked for R&D. Combined Army and Navy RDT&E for LRHW and CPS in FY2026 approaches $1.31 billion. Production ambitions call for 48–72 hypersonic missiles annually by 2030, with volume expected to drive unit costs below the current approximately $41 million flyaway figure.

Remaining Risks and Oversight Concerns

The GAO’s 2025 Weapons Systems Annual Assessment and the FY2024 Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) report both flag persistent gaps in the program’s test record. The DOT&E specifically stated there is insufficient data to assess LRHW’s operational effectiveness, lethality, suitability, and survivability, cautioning that capability uncertainty could result in excessive use requirements or failure to meet combatant commander objectives. The GAO has separately recommended the program office assess adoption of digital engineering tools and digital twin methodologies to reduce technical risk.

Cost trajectory remains a concern. The estimated cost of fielding Battery 1 increased by approximately $150 million over 2023 initial estimates, driven by higher missile unit costs, testing delays, failure investigations, and retests. A failed pre-flight-check abort in September 2023 and additional setbacks in FY2025 testing added schedule pressure. The strategy of accepting higher early-production unit costs while banking on learning curve effects and Navy demand pooling to reduce prices as production scales remains to be validated.

Strategic stability considerations add a policy dimension. Because hypersonic glide vehicles can follow depressed, maneuverable trajectories that may be ambiguous to adversary early-warning systems, there is documented concern in arms-control research communities that a CPS or LRHW launch could be misinterpreted as a nuclear strike. U.S. planners have acknowledged this risk and are developing transparency measures and launch protocols to manage escalation — a challenge that will grow as operationally deployed inventories expand.

Looking Ahead

The March 26 test represents the third publicly confirmed end-to-end success for the joint AUR architecture, following the June 28, 2024 launch from Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii — in which the C-HGB flew more than 2,000 nautical miles to the Marshall Islands — and the December 12, 2024 Cape Canaveral launch that validated the BOC and TEL operational configuration. The pace of successful tests is providing the data foundation needed to support Army battery fielding certifications and the Navy’s eventual at-sea live-fire qualification of USS Zumwalt.

The program’s next critical milestones include: completion of Battery 1 fielding and formal IOC declaration; Q4 FY2026 delivery of Battery 2; USS Zumwalt’s return to fleet operations and CPS sea-based testing; and first Virginia-class VPM integration in FY2028. The Air Force’s parallel Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) and the revived Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), for which FY2026 procurement funding has been restored, will together define a three-service conventional hypersonic strike triad that the Pentagon envisions as a cornerstone of its next-generation deterrence posture.

Verified Sources & Formal Citations

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