Gillian Bussey, director of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, said the Department of Defense will need to boost its production capacity for offensive and defensive hypersonic systems, DOD News reported Tuesday.
Bussey said at a discussion with the Center for Strategic and International Studies that DOD should boost the rates of additive manufacturing for cruise missiles engines and thermal protection systems for glide vehicles.
She said these particular aspects of hypersonics production take the most time and addressing them can produce significant results.
“Those are the things that take the longest. If we can reduce the production time and increase the capacity and you know double, triple, quadruple those production numbers, I think that’s how we’ll really make a difference,” she said.
Bussey also noted that DOD is prioritizing offensive hypersonic systems over defensive ones because the latter presents higher costs and complexities.
