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Pentagon enlists Northrop, General Dynamics in quest for 100-knot, supercavitating submarine
Pentagon researchers envision a Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) team of the future on an urgent mission able to race to a hostile shore in a vessel capable of speeds of 100 knots underwater, without the risk of detection or the spine-jarring turbulence associated with the SEALs' current Mark V surface craft.
That is one of the potential results of a bold development effort launched by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Called the Underwater Express, the program will examine the possible applications of a technology that enables submerged objects to overcome water's enormous resistance and reach speeds greater than those that can be attained by most surface vessels.
These hopes for the future are based on supercavitation, which relies on the formation of a bubble of air around a submerged object to divert water away from its skin, cutting friction or drag by 60-70 percent.
The concept of supercavitation is decades old, but has been utilized in the past only for weapons, such as torpedoes, with diameters measured in inches. In the 1980s, for example, the Soviet Union developed a torpedo called Shkval, or Squall, that supposedly could achieve speeds of 200 knots.
But the DARPA program is hoping to achieve supercavitation with an underwater vehicle that is 8 feet in diameter and weighs 60 tons.
"The intent is to determine the feasibility for supercavitation technology to enable a new class of highspeed underwater craft for future littoral missions that could involve the transport of high-value cargo and/or small units of personnel," DARPA said in its proposal.
The developmental project "must culminate in a credible demonstration at a significant scale to prove that a supercavitating underwater craft is controllable at speeds up to 100 knots."
To pursue that objective, DARPA awarded research and development contracts in early November to General Dynamics' Electric Boat division for $5.7 million and Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems for $5.4 million.
To indicate the scale of the technological leap DARPA is seeking, Gene Cumm, Northrop's business development executive on the program, said, "supercavitation is to an underwater vehicle what the jet engine was to a propeller airplane."
The contracts fund separate 13-month developmental efforts with the potential for...