The National Aero-Space Plane Tech Transfer Triad: The Tomahawk Missile Case

This paper illustrates the growing commonality between aircraft structural requirements for materials and the need for similar materials in systems installed in U.S. Navy surface combatant vessels. Based on development work done originally for the X-30 flight demonstrator vehicle of the National Aero-Space Plane Program, the path between these requirements is illustrated in six sections of this document. The first three sections describe the X-30 overall propulsion concept and the resulting development of two classes of titanium needed to meet the performance requirements of the vehicle. The technology transfer methods used by the NASP Program to facilitate transfer of the technologies are discussed in section four, while the Navy requirement is addressed in section five. The synthesis of aircraft and ship requirements through industrial consortium building is detailed in section six, while the status of the program and potential additional applications of these NASP-developed technologies concludes the paper.