Lockheed holding fast on SR-72 plan

摘要

Lockheed Martin has renewed its strong promotion of the unmanned SR-72 aircraft concept, with company leadership now pushing a reusable, air-breathing hypersonic vehicle as an "affordable" way to validate a new propulsion system for achieving speeds between Mach 6.0 and M20. Chief executive Marillyn Hewson, speaking to reporters in mid-March, confirmed that the company is building on "several breakthroughs" derived from its short-lived HTV-3X Blackswift hypersonic testbed, which ended at the turn of the last decade, to develop "a controllable, low-drag aerodynamic configuration capable of stable operation from take-off to subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic [speed] to Mach 6".