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Guided Weapons

Question for Ministry of Defence

UIN HL509, tabled on 30 July 2024

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop the UK’s global leadership on hypersonic missiles and other hypersonic technologies; and what progress they have made in the development of a domestically manufactured hypersonic missile.

Answered on

13 August 2024

The UK is demonstrating its leadership in the global hypersonic arena by active participation in the AUKUS Pillar 2 Advanced Capability Partnership. Since inception in 2022, the UK has been championing accelerated capability development with AUKUS allies, whilst also developing the long-term future of the UK's hypersonic industrial base.

Additionally, MOD continues to work with existing allies and international partners to investigate a range of advanced future capabilities.

Building on previous research and development, the MOD has established a Programme Team - Team Hypersonics (UK) - to cohere Ministry of Defence, industry and academia around the development of a sovereign hypersonic capability.

Team Hypersonics (UK) has established the Hypersonic Technologies and Capability Development Framework (HTCDF). This bespoke £ one billion Commercial Agile Route to Market is the mechanism to facilitate a spiralled approach to technology development through to a sovereign capability. 90 suppliers including defence primes, small & medium enterprises (SME) and academic institutions are now signed up.

With these enablers in place, the testing of critical sovereign-designed and manufactured missile sub-system technologies continues, including a novel hypersonic propulsion system. Several invitations to tender have already been released to spirally develop a range of technologies. These and future ITTs will allow the development of technical demonstrators and onwards into a capability.