The Startup-Style Team Reimagining Hypersonic Defense

A hypersonic threat moves faster than 3,800 mph and is capable of high-g maneuvers. Detecting it, tracking it, predicting its path, and giving defenders enough time to respond to remove the threat is one of the most complex problems in national security. It is possible, but only with the right tools working together.

A small team inside Lockheed Martin set out to help solve that problem, supported by independent research and development investment in counter-hypersonic technologies. They call the effort Pitch Black.

From the start, the Pitch Black team is focused on building one connected architecture that brings sensors, algorithms, decision tools and defeat mechanisms together to react at extreme speed for hypersonic defense. And they do it using a model more common in Silicon Valley than in traditional defense programs.

A New Way to Build Complex Systems

For hypersonic defense, the Pitch Black team began with a hard truth: tuning one sensor or one algorithm at a time is not enough to defend against hypersonic threats. The challenge requires a connected system that senses early, shares information instantly to enable correct decision making and enabling resilient engagement as threats evolve.

Building that kind of architecture across space, air, land and sea requires a different way of working.

Rather than assembling a large project from day one, the Pitch Black team has pulled in experts from across Lockheed Martin, including algorithm designers, flight test leads, systems engineers, AI researchers and space architects, and empowered them to operate like a startup: fast cycles, early demos, constant iteration.

"We start at yes," said Research Program Manager Principal Guy Chriqui. "If it looks promising, we accelerate. Obstacles become design notes."

Turning Vision Into Capabilities

The team's approach focused on two complementary objectives.

The first: improve current systems by closing urgent technical gaps. Tightly focused projects delivered value rapidly, including enhancements to existing sensing, decision making and engagement capabilities for the hypersonic defense mission. To date, multiple Business Areas are incorporating 9 of these capabilities into their programs of record.

The second: pursue breakthrough ideas that traditional development cycles and production programs may not prioritize. In one example, a team of young scientists in Palo Alto explored entirely new ways to detect fast-moving threats. Their early results enhanced key elements of the track custody architecture.

The next step was to begin integrating these capabilities together into elements of a kill web in order to model, simulate and demonstrate some of these capabilities together. Chriqui noted that this was intentional from day one, explaining that the team "built the capability backbone first, and every project, whether it was closing urgent gaps or pushing new science, was designed to plug into a bigger architecture. That's what made everything move faster."

Pictured above: A graphical representation of a global shield that would defend against hypersonic trajectory. Hypersonic vehicles travel vast distances across the earth and require many systems to work together.

A Different Experience for Customers

The team changed how it engaged with customers, too.

Instead of requesting small early investments, they got right to work to be Ahead of Ready. They demonstrated new capabilities, showing how satellites, ground systems and algorithms could work together as one. "We didn't go to customers with our hands out. We built first, showed the prototype capability, and then invited them to partner," said Chriqui.

Customers can see elements of the architecture in action to better understand how each piece fits into a broader system. Multiple customers have begun inviting the team into more ambitious joint demonstrations and exercises, including live demonstrations that paired Lockheed Martin capabilities with national and international assets.

Those exercises laid the groundwork for the program's next phase.

What Comes Next

Building upon the ongoing project, the team continues to identify and mature potential solutions for the next set of capability gaps, prototype quickly, demonstrate, then transition.

Three areas lead that roadmap, each shaped by lessons learned during recent international exercises and partner engagements.

First, practical exportable configurations.
Australia has become one of the team's most engaged partners, motivated in part by its proximity to hypersonic threat ranges. Joint exercises have shown that the architecture can stitch together seamlessly with Australian assets, creating a real-world defensive layer. It is a practical configuration designed to operate with the systems allies already have, giving them capability in the near term and the options to expand over time. It also builds on Lockheed Martins's position as Australia's strategic partner for integrated air and missile defense.

Second, integrating insights before and after launch.
Before a missile ever leaves the ground, there are patterns, signals and movements that hint something is coming. In the team's words, this is the "left-of-launch" side of the problem. After launch is the "right-of-launch" side: the sensors, decision making tools and layered effectors to defeat the threat.

These two worlds rarely talk to each other or integrate capabilities because they involve different customers, different systems and different levels of classification. But the team has shown through early demonstrations that when you connect the left and the right, defenders gain precious minutes and far clearer context. This left-right integration is becoming a defining feature of the next phase.

Third, enabling long-range intercepts from space.
The most effective defensive opportunities often appear far away and very early in a hypersonic trajectory. To take advantage of that moment, an interceptor needs guidance updates in flight, updates that can ideally come from above. That means creating on edge processing capability and space-enabled communication pathways that can reach long distances in multiple directions over the horizon to support a missile traveling at extreme speeds. For the team, it is a key technical thread that ties directly back into the architecture they have built.

Each new effort grows the architecture. The capability expands. And the system learns to solve the next set of challenges without starting over.

Why It Matters

Hypersonic defense is a system-of-systems challenge. Solving it requires speed, integration and a clear vision of how every part works together. It's like a relay race where runners hand off the baton flawlessly at extreme speed. The stronger the handoffs, the longer you maintain the lead. "What matters in a hypersonic fight is the decision window. Connect the system and that window opens," said Chriqui.

The Pitch Black team has had the privilege to show that when technology development moves faster and people are trusted to lead boldly, major progress can happen quickly.

Chriqui says the secret wasn't just the technical architecture but the human one, "What makes this work isn't just the technology, it's the people. We have built a team of whole humans with different strengths and life experiences, and that mix is what gives the effort its edge."

In three years, they have delivered capabilities, won key programs and set a new standard for how complex defense problems can be tackled.

And they are doing it the Lockheed Martin way: with precision, mission focus and commitment to keep those they serve ahead of ready.