The Pentagon’s failure to disclose more details about the challenges and progress of its hypersonic weapons development are posing significant risks to the program.
This is according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which conducted a comprehensive study amid the military’s failure to field its first operational hypersonic weapons despite already spending billions of dollars.
Though the defense department provides “some information” to lawmakers, the watchdog said it has not been “comprehensively reporting” to Congress its progress on managing risks.
It further stressed that communicating comprehensive information would enable lawmakers to better understand what is happening and provide necessary oversight.
“Without comprehensive enterprise-level reporting, Congress will have an incomplete or fragmented perspective on the risks DoD has identified, the actions it is taking to address them, or the costs that these actions entail,” the report noted.
A Troubled Program
The US Army, Navy, and Air Force each has at least one hypersonic weapons program aimed at rivaling similar efforts by China and Russia.
The army’s long-range hypersonic weapon, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin, was originally scheduled for delivery last year but has been pushed to at least late 2024.
Unspecified issues caused the service to abort hypersonic weapon testing for the third time in September 2023.
Meanwhile, the air force is embarking on a five-year prototyping phase for its rapid response weapon, which would be fired from a fighter jet and fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5.
According to the GAO, the army program and the navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic weapon program have a projected combined cost of $40.3 billion.
It warned that these figures could still increase if the Pentagon does not give a full assessment of the difficulties and challenges its hypersonic programs are facing.
