Peraton has won a U.S. Army Hypersonic Test Engineering, Mission Planning and Systems, or HyTEMPS, contract, valued at up to $44 million over 2 years.
Under the contract, Peraton will provide comprehensive mission support for interservice flight test missions. The company will also develop hardware and software solutions associated with the development, maintenance and sustainment, and operations of mission and test systems.
“Hypersonic vehicle testing is an extraordinarily complex process,” said Roger Mason, president of Peraton’s Space, Intelligence and Cyber sector. “In addition to the inherent challenges of studying an object traveling at speeds above Mach 5 across uninhabited ocean regions requiring the support of multiple test ranges and collection assets, we also must account for the unique maneuverability of the hypersonic test vehicle.”
The HyTEMPS contract, Mason added, allows Peraton to bring together its extensive hypersonic testing and evaluation knowledge and experience to create more testing capacity and capability for the customer.
Peraton has been supporting the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center and its mission to develop hypersonic vehicle technologies for over 10 years. As part of this award, the company will continue to support the advancement of the Army’s Portable Range Operations and Test Network and will also work new initiatives, including developing and deploying novel collection mechanisms that place different instrument sensors closer to a hypersonic vehicle’s flight path and point of impact to gather more testing data.
Some of those mechanisms could include developing and operating an open ocean range system that incorporates sensors based on ships, barges and unmanned maritime systems; and incorporating advanced data collection using aerial drones.
And because the Defense Department has prioritized fielding hypersonic weapons, the hypersonics flight test rhythm is scheduled to triple from two events to up to six events per year. This elevates the responsibility on contractors like Peraton to provide the capabilities and solutions needed to execute tests on a tight schedule.
“Peraton’s extensive experience in hypersonic testing and evaluation positions us to provide mission-critical support to the Army’s cutting-edge hypersonic initiatives,” Mason said. ” We are honored to expand our relationship with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center to support more tests and gather richer data.”