The Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO) has awarded six contracts to advance next-generation hypersonic technologies capable of traveling faster than Mach 5.
Through a partnership with the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), JHTO selected Leidos, GoHypersonic, Special Aerospace Services, Purdue Applied Research Institute, Halo Engines, and Kratos under the Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S²MARTS) program.
The awards were made through the S²MARTS Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), a flexible contracting mechanism that allows the Department of Defense to quickly engage industry and academic partners for research, prototyping, and development outside the constraints of traditional federal acquisition rules.
The initiative focuses on overcoming the extreme engineering challenges of hypersonic flight, including intense heat, high-speed maneuvering, and precise long-range targeting.
Each awardee will develop and test subsystem technologies in areas such as pilot-to-target systems, advanced aerodynamics, propulsion design, mission planning, and overall system effectiveness. Efforts will combine modeling, simulation, and experimental validation on the ground and in flight.
Advancing Development Through OTA
The S²MARTS OTA is part of a broader push by the Pentagon to streamline research and acquisition for emerging technologies.
In recent years, OTAs have been leveraged for multiple hypersonics initiatives. For example, in 2019, Dynetics received an OTA worth $351.6 million to produce prototype Common-Hypersonic Glide Body systems.
In September 2025, Lockheed Martin was tapped to prototype the Next Generation Command and Control system under a $26-million OTA.
Anduril also received a similar OTA worth $99.6 million the same year.
