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NEWS | April 12, 2024

Joint Hypersonics Transition Office announces winners in $500,000 prize challenge

By Emily Gray, NSWC Crane Corporate Communications

Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO), in collaboration with Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), has announced the winners to the Hyper-AMPD! prize challenge.

49 white papers were submitted in Phase I and Aerojet Rocketdyne, Castelion Corporation, GoHypersonic Incorporated, Northrup Grumman, and Specter Aerospace were invited to participate in Phase II of this challenge. Phase II will focus on building a Feasibility Study on the concept that each group designed during the Phase I White Paper. JHTO is looking for creative and cost-effective solutions that can be developed and tested within 24 months.

Following Phase II, winners will be chosen for both monetary and non-monetary prizes. Up to two winners will be selected. More information about the Hyper-AMPD! prize challenge can be found on their website at Challenge.Gov.

Dr. Sarah Armstrong, Director of JHTO’s Systems Engineering Field Activity at NSWC Crane, is excited to see the continued development of this project.

"The hypersonic community came out in force to support JHTO's first-ever prize challenge, Hyper-AMPD! It is very encouraging to see so many novel ideas for low-cost, rapidly fieldable hypersonic systems. Submissions came from a wide range of idea generators, as well as created new partnerships in response to this challenge. It was incredibly difficult to narrow the selection for Phase II, but I am very excited to see the outcome of the feasibility studies over the coming months,” said Dr. Armstrong.

Note: The original published news story included an incorrect total prize amount in the headline and has been corrected as of 3:00pm EDT. 

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