Jane Edwards
BAE Systems could land new U.S. government contracts for electromagnetic railguns after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter outlined the $582.7 billion defense budget plan for fiscal 2017, The Telegraph reported Saturday.
Alan Tovey writes Carter told his audience at a recent Economic Club of Washington event that part of the FY 2017 defense budget would fund research projects that the strategic capabilities office currently works on.
“The SCO has got a project on gun-based missile defense, where we’re taking some of the same hypervelocity smart projectiles that we developed for the electromagnetic gun – that’s the railgun,” Carter said, according to the report.
The report said such weapons are designed to fire projectiles at a speed of up to 4,500 miles per hour through the use of electromagnetic forces.
Carter noted that the Defense Department plans to use the railguns’ hypervelocity projectiles for defensive purposes.
BAE currently collaborates with the U.S. Navy to build electromagnetic railguns as well as HVPs through development development contracts, Tovey reports.
