Summary and What You Need to Know: Lockheed Martin’s SR-72 hypersonic aircraft, a successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, is advancing toward service but faces significant budgetary challenges. Recent reports reveal the program has exceeded its budget by $45 million in Q2 2024, bringing total losses to $335 million since 2022. This overspending highlights ongoing financial strain, compounded by Lockheed’s self-funded development approach.
-Despite these issues, the SR-72’s potential—promised as a Mach 6 aircraft with ISR and strike capabilities—remains high.
-The program's secrecy and Lockheed's expansion efforts suggest it is progressing toward operational status, potentially aligning with future U.S. Air Force needs.
Lockheed Martin’s mysterious hypersonic aircraft known as SR-72 appears to be continuing its march toward service, but the program is not immune from the Air Force’s broader budgetary woes.
Sandboxx News has covered the secretive development of SR-72, Lockheed Martin’s hypersonic successor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird, and its potential path toward service in the not-too-distant future. Now, new evidence has come to light that suggests this exotic new aircraft program is facing compounding budgetary shortfalls, which could further complicate matters for the Air Force as it struggles to find ways to fund a bevy of high-profile new efforts, including new ICBMs, stealth bombers, and air superiority fighters.
The SR-72 was once publicly touted as a Mach 6 spy plane with strike capabilities, meaning this high-flying jet wouldn’t be limited to solely taking pictures like its Blackbird predecessor and would instead be capable of engaging targets directly on extremely short timelines and with minimal chance of intercept.
According to recent Aviation Week reports, a classified Lockheed Martin program that involves a “highly complex design and systems integration” went another $45 million over budget in the second quarter of 2024. Based on Lockheed’s quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that places the firms’ total losses associated with this single shadowy program up to some $335 million since 2022. Those same filings went on to postulate that losses may continue to accrue as the company faces “advanced procurement costs” moving forward.
This all points toward........