Airspeed has passed the first milestone of Project Irukandji with captive carriage of a prototype of the supersonic target on Airspeed’s in-house, Marchetti S211 R&D platform. Later phases of the Irukandji project will be powered by solid rocket motors using a variant of the 10-inch filament-wound cases that Airspeed manufactures for DSTG and Thales Australia.
In many ways, Irukandji is a possible direct replacement for the now-retired AQM-37, some 5,500 of which were used to replicate air-to-air and air-to-surface threats in a life spanning 1963 to 2022. Whilst aerodynamically similar to AQM-37, Irukandji will use a solid rocket motor rather than hazardous hypergolic fuels.
Further flight testing will be conducted in early 2025 to gather performance data and refine aerodynamic modelling. Subject to final approvals from Defence, Airspeed will raise the technical readiness level of Irukandji with the release of a number of unpowered glide vehicles at the Woomera Test Range to validate system flight characteristics and guidance capabilities.
Airspeed’s related work in solid rocket motors will continue in 2025 with further work on filament-wound carbon fibre rocket motor cases of varying diameter. We will also conduct further work to quantify our workforce and facilities expansion plans to manufacture – in Australia – the quantity of solid rocket motors described in The Australian Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Plan publicly released on 30 October this year.
