Recent hints that Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division may have already delivered an advanced new spy plane to the United States Air Force have prompted a resurgence in speculation about a secretive aircraft known to many as the SR-72.
The most likely scenario is that a lot of money was spent on publicly and secretly on hypersonics, hypersonic engines, spy planes and spy drones. Short run secret prototypes could have been made but most did not work very well. If there was a highly successful mach 4-6 spyplane then that technology would have been adapted into other hypersonic planes.
The Aurora or Darkstar is believed to be a Mach 4+ hypersonic, clandestine, high-altitude Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft for the United States. It was supposed to replace the aging SR-71 Blackbird. US officials have never officially confirmed or denied its existence.
The US military budgets have about $9 billion of dark projects.
In the 1980s, the Air Force was looking for something that could replace the SR-71 Blackbird. The Blackbird was considered expensive to maintain as SR-71 flight operations cost a reported $200 to $300 million a year.
The SR-71 and SR-91 spyplane functions were mostly replaced by better spy satellites and drones.
There is now a SR-72 spy drone program at Lockheed.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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A couple of questions/observations:
“The Blackbird was considered expensive to maintain as SR-71 flight operations cost a reported $200 to $300 million a year.” Is this per plane or per total program? Either way, if I understand things correctly, it is about 1/3 of a single space shuttle launch during the time period. Seems a bargain to me.
If something like an advanced spy plane was currently flying in US airspace, I would think that there would be some credible observations of the craft in flight. AW&ST used to publish a fair amount of ‘strangely shaped craft – doughnut in a rope contrail’ reports, but I don’t recall a lot of this as of late. We apparently see a lot of UAPs, where are the spycraft?
Aurora replaced the Blackbird, and nothing that advanced will see the light of day until our military has a peer rival. Russia isn’t even close, and China has a lot of old Russian aircraft, their own stuff can’t even surpass our known aircraft, so there is no need to show off more impressive things. All it would do is incentivize our “enemies” to build their own versions, largely by stealing tech. But if they don’t know it exists, they don’t even know what to look for.
As if some of the 1960s mojo lives on in the 30-somethings that work there today just by using the name ‘skunk works’.
Love the hypersonic oneupmanship… we cannot allow a mine shaft gap!