Crane prize challenges to focus on hypersonics
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The Joint Hypersonics Transition Office at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division is launching two prizes challenges with the goal of rapid development of hypersonics prototypes.
The first challenge asks high school and college students to create videos answer questions related to hypersonics with a total of $31,000 in prizes at stake.
The second challenge seeks novel ideas from members of the public and private sectors for the development and testing of hypersonic systems that has a pool of $1 million in awards.
Sarah Armstrong, director of the JHTO’s Systems Engineering Field Activity at NSWC Crane, told Inside INdiana Business the challenges are designed to encourage innovative thinking and creative solutions.
“These challenges were created to give us a different perspective from the way that we’ve been traditionally approaching the DoD acquisition for kind of out of the box thinking,” Armstrong said. “So we are really trying to use this platform as a way to get different perspectives from the community in a different way, and different voices, too.”
The student prize challenge, titled Hypersonic Horizons: The High Speed Video Challenge, tasks both high school and undergraduate college students with creating a three-to-five minute video responding to certain questions.
For the high school students, they will answer questions related to the new style of aircraft that could make flights at hypersonic speeds. For the college students, they will be asked about the benefits of hypersonic travel, potential physics or engineering problems that could be created and how to solve them.
The first place entries will receive $5,000 for high school and $10,000 for college, with more awards granted for second through fifth place.
Armstrong said the student challenge aims to make more students aware of hypersonics as the DoD looks to bolster the overall hypersonics workforce.
“Getting high school age students involved is a way to more fully develop the pipeline, not just in those people who are interested in going into research, not just the PhDs, the master’s students, but those who are going to go and get their bachelor’s or those who are going to go to trade schools as well,” she said. “There are lots of different paths to take in hypersonics technology and really reaching the students in high school is a way to make sure that that is a job option open to them later on.”
The second challenge, known as Hypersonic Accelerated Manufactured Prototype Demonstration, or Hyper-AMD!, is a two-phased challenge that seeks unique ideas for hypersonic systems that could be rapidly integrated with existing U.S. Department of Defense platforms.
Officials say they are looking for ideas not just from traditional defense industrial base members, but also university applied research centers, federally funded research and development centers, venture capitalists, other federal laboratories, companies or groups who have not done business with the government before, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and anyone else.
The JHTO is looking for “creative and cost-effective solutions with the overall goal of developing an offensive system that can be developed and tested within 24 months.”
The first phase will see participants submitting a white paper outlining their concepts. Five submissions will be chosen to receive $100,000 to participate in the second phase, which will involve turning the concepts into a more deeply developed proposal.
In the end, two winning proposals will be selected, each receiving up to $250,000.
“We’re really trying to look at new ways of doing things and things that will help us move technology forward faster, and really rethink the way that we approach technical problems for the DoD,” Armstrong said.
Submissions for the student challenge and the first phase of the Hyper-AMPD! challenge are due by Jan. 17.
The DoD says the rapid response time that hypersonics technology can provide to its missile systems gives the military the ability to respond quickly to emerging threats. But the development of hypersonic missiles presents technical challenges associated with design, testing, and production.”
“Hypersonics is intended to bolster our arsenal,” Armstrong said. “It’s not an end all, be all system development, but it is a means for us to support the weapons that we have right now and really make our our warfighters more effective in in the future.”
Hypersonics research is nothing new to Indiana. Last June, the Purdue Applied Research Institute cut the ribbon on the $41 million Hypersonics and Applied Research Facility at the university’s Discovery Park District. The facility houses two wind tunnels, including the only Mach 8 quiet wind tunnel in the world.
A year prior, the University of Notre Dame dedicated two facilities focusing on the research, development and testing of hypersonic propulsion systems.