Thread alert: Let’s try to figure out how much the US Air Force and DARPA are really spending to develop two scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile demonstrators. And let’s do it by following the money on my favorite web site: http://USASpending.gov . /1

It seems to be very easy. You just hit the “keyword search” button and type “HAWC,” which is the acronym for the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept program, which funds Lockheed Martin and Raytheon demonstrators. You can read more about it here: https://www.darpa.mil/program/hypersonic-air-breathing-weapon-concept /2

A long list of transactions appear. Sort the list by “transaction amount” in descending order, and voila! Click the top two AWARD ID links, and you’ll see contract summary pages for all HAWC contracts awarded to both companies. But here’s where it starts to get interesting. /3

Notice that the contract ceilings for both companies is $208.9 million. That suggests the overall industrial value of the program is about $418 million to develop two competing HAWC demonstrators. Upon further review, however, the actual cost is significantly higher. /4

On the Lockheed contract summary page, scroll down to the “award history” section. Everything seems in order. Total spending on subcontractors is $36.83 million, or 18.7% of overall costs. One problem: the scramjet supplier (the heart of the whole program) is missing! /5

Ok, it’s not completing missing. Aerojet Rocketdyne (who Lockheed has confirmed as their exclusive HAWC scramjet supplier) received a $125,000 award on March 6, 2018, but that was for a “support transmitter,” not a scramjet. So where is the money for the propulsion subsystem? /6

Let’s look at award history section on Raytheon’s contract summary page. Remember, the contract ceiling is $208.9 million, but the total value of sub-awards is … $475.07 million, or 244.2% more than the contract ceiling! So what’s going on here? /7

Still in the award history section, sort the “amount” column in descending order, and you’ll see the answer. Raytheon’s confirmed scramjet supplier is Northrop Grumman, which acquired Orbital ATK, which previously had absorbed Alliant Techsystems Operations LLC. /8

And a series of sub-awards to Alliant Techsystems under Raytheon’s HAWC program add up $430.8 million!

So what does this tell us? /9

A separate line item in the USAF or DARPA budget is funneling $266.17 million to Raytheon’s scramjet supplier above the company’s HAWC contract ceiling value. /10

This is speculation, but I think Lockheed’s scramjet supplier Aerojet is probably receiving a similar amount ($260-ish million) but under a different contract. Most likely, it’s the highly secretive line item for the High Speed Strike Weapon program. /11

If Aerojet is receiving a similar amount as Northrop Grumman for the scramjet, the overall value of the competitive HAWC demonstrator is probably over $900 million or nearly $1 billion, rather than $418 million. END THREAD /12