An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will examine the feasibility of the U.S. Army's Strategic Long Range Cannon program, which aims to fire a projectile at hypersonic speeds up to 1,000 miles. The study will pay particular attention to the propellant, projectiles, electromagnetic launch, and the cannon itself. The congressionally requested study was outlined on page 42 of the House Report that accompanied the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020.
The study will identify and evaluate the technology approaches, policies, and concepts of operations of the Strategic Long-Range Cannon (SLRC) program. The study shall include:
(1) An identification and evaluation of attributes of potential peer or near-peer adversaries’ operating environments and concepts that would enhance or reduce the effectiveness of SLRC;
(2) An identification and evaluation of limitations and vulnerabilities of current ground-based capabilities for long-range fires and near-term SLRC capabilities under development as well as existing and proposed countermeasures expected to be employed by presumed adversaries in an MDO 2035 scenario;
(3) An identification and evaluation of key and essential technologies needed to achieve documented goals and capabilities of SLRC along with associated technologies required to support manufacturability and sustainability; and
(4) A technology maturation roadmap, including an estimated funding profile over time, needed to achieve an effective operational SLRC that describes both the critical and associated supporting technologies, systems integration, prototyping and experimentation, and test and evaluation.