The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has contracted Raytheon to develop a new class of propulsion technology.
Under the agreement, Raytheon will develop a rotating detonation engine (RTE) for the Gambit program.
To Enable New Class of Weapons Development
The RTE’s greater compactness allows it to carry more fuel than current rockets, ramjets, and gas turbine engines and generate greater range and speed.
It is intended to enable the development of affordable long-range weapons for deployment from fourth-generation aircraft in an anti-access/area denial environment.
“These mechanically simple engines have no moving parts making them less complex than gas turbine engines and therefore potentially lower cost and simpler to manufacture,” the Air Force Research Laboratory explained.
“RDEs rapidly burn fuel via a supersonically traveling detonation wave; this in turn delivers high performance in a small volume.”
“This volume savings can be used to increase fuel and/or payload volume providing potential range, speed, and affordability benefits compared to rockets, ramjets, and gas turbines.”
Two-Phase Program
Gambit is a two-phase program, each lasting 18 months.
Phase one will include the propulsion system’s preliminary design completion and direct connect combustor testing, as well as free jet inlet testing.
The next phase will see the system’s detailed design and full-scale testing under flight conditions.
Gambit’s culmination could pave the way for a future program to flight-test a weapon prototype featuring the RTE technology.