Key Points and Summary on SR-72 Darkstar – The SR-72 “Darkstar,” nicknamed the “Son of Blackbird,” is a highly secretive, unmanned hypersonic aircraft reportedly in development by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works.
What Russia and China Can’t Match: Envisioned as a successor to the legendary SR-71, the SR-72 is designed to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 6 (over 4,600 mph), making it nearly immune to existing air defenses.
SR-72. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-Powered by an advanced turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine, its primary missions will be high-speed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as serving as a strike platform capable of launching its own hypersonic weapons.
-A prototype may be ready by late 2025.
SR-72 Darkstar Explained
Son of Blackbird? Am I talking about ornithology or bird watching? No, more like an ultra-fast spy plane that took its cues from the Cold War. I’m referring to the SR-72 Darkstar – the upstart “son” of the SR-71 Blackbird.
The Darkstar could someday hit speeds of MACH 6, making it as fast as a hypersonic weapon. This hot rod may fly at over 4,600 miles per hour – a blistering pace that could make it immune to enemy air defenses.
The SR-72 is being hatched at the famous Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. A prototype may be ready in the fourth quarter of this year. The Air Force wants hypersonic aircraft, and the SR-72 will fit the bill. This will be the fastest airplane ever built, and it will be unmanned (according to many reports, at least) – so try shooting it down – no human will ever be in danger.
We are Talking Mega-ISR Collection
The Son of Blackbird can collect intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data better than any manned spy plane. It is orders of magnitude faster and more radar evasive than another strategic spy drone that the United States has depended upon since the advent of the Global War on Terror – the aging RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Spying and Going on the Offensive
The idea behind the SR-72 is to provide intelligence from areas not well covered by satellite imagery or during the brief periods between satellite overflights. The Darkstar can even be an offensive weapon that can fire its hypersonic missiles, so don’t pigeon-hole it as only a recon bird.
The new Hypersonic Strike Weapon is being designed with the SR-72 in mind, as part of a project running concurrently with the Son of Blackbird program.
What Was Special About Papa SR-71 Blackbird?
This is a natural outgrowth of the famed SR-71 Blackbird, which had an eventful service record during the Cold War and afterward. The Blackbird could hit an altitude of over 80,000 feet at MACH 3. The SR-71 was retired in 1998, and the SR-72 looks to carry the torch. The Son of Blackbird will be so fast that it could enter another continent’s airspace within an hour of getting the command to fly.
SR-72 from Lockheed Martin. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin.
SR-72 artist image. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Newfangled Engine Enables Eye-Watering Speed
The SR-72 will be over 100 feet long, featuring an advanced design that promotes electrifying speed and radar-evading qualities. The propulsion system is noteworthy. This is called the turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC).
DARPA describes TBCC as a “turbine engine for low-speed operations and a dual-mode ramjet, which would work efficiently whether the air flowing through it is subsonic [as in a ramjet] or supersonic [as in a scramjet] – for high-speed operations.” TBCC could even someday allow aircraft to reach MACH 10.
The SR-72 will have only brief periods over target. The MACH 6 speed will be breathtaking and reduce the window for even the most modern enemy air defenses, such as the new Russian S-500 surface-to-air missile system.
The Son of Blackbird first entered the lexicon in 2007. It didn’t seem real at the time. DARPA was not working on the TBCC propulsion system, and drone flight was still dominated by the Predator and Reaper models.
We Got a Glimpse from Hollywood on SR-72
It next made a Hollywood appearance in the 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick. Lockheed Martin reportedly built a mock-up for the Tom Cruise movie that resembles the final design for the Darkstar.
To deal with the huge amount of heat that must be absorbed by the airplane, new coatings have been developed. “It is believed that the SR-72 is being designed with a wider range of abilities and will feature many advanced materials, such as carbon composites. These materials could withstand more extreme thermal stress than the titanium skin used for heat dissipation in the SR-71, generated as it travels at high speeds, according to Interesting Engineering.
In all, the Son of Blackbird is exciting, but is it needed with the high resolution of modern satellite imagery? The recon bird will help with battle damage assessment (BDA), something that is highly desired after the B-2 Spirit bombing of Iranian nuclear infrastructure sites. This extreme level of BDA discovery is essential, and regular open-source satellite imagery has not determined the destruction rendered by the B-2 attack in Iran.
The SR-72’s reported ability to fire hypersonic weapons is what sets it apart from its “father.” This gives it a multi-mission profile, providing another way for the U.S. Air Force to neutralize enemy air defenses and clear threats before follow-on bombers, such as the B-21 Raider, can bring death and destruction.
We’ll wait for that prototype to be released by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. This secretive program does not yet have a price tag. It is likely to be listed under Air Force special projects that do not have a public line item and budget number.
This could be an expensive aircraft with technologies that are not fully developed. If all aspects of the Son of Blackbird come to fruition, the enemy will have another U.S. airplane to fret over, and that is just what Lockheed Martin wants to sell to the Air Force.
About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
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