By Ann Roosevelt
NetFires LLC, a joint venture between Raytheon [RTN] Missile Systems and Lockheed Martin [LMT] Missiles and Fire Control, announced a successful July 22 launch of another Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System (NLOS-LS) Precision Attack Missile (PAM), leading to the Guided Test Flight Phase, officials said.
Scott Speet, executive vice president of NetFires LLC and Raytheon’s NLOS-LS program director, said: “NLOS-LS is now ready to begin the guided flight test phase in September.”
NLOS-LS is one of the 14 Future Combat Systems (FCS) core systems and part of the Spin Out 1, the acceleration of mature technologies expected to be fielded to infantry brigades beginning in 2011.
NLOS LS was the first of the (FCS) Spin Out 1 systems fielded to Ft. Bliss soldiers last fall for evaluation. This week, soldiers at the Army Evaluation Task Force at Ft. Bliss, Texas, are using the NLOS-LS a part of the Preliminary-Limited User Test, ahead of an LUT next summer for the infantry.
NLOS-LS is also one of the Navy’s littoral combat ship mission modules.
There will be 18 tests at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in the guided flight test phase, Tom Moody, NLOS-LS Business Development Manager, told Defense Daily.
During the control test vehicle launch phase, everything was examined but the seeker, he said. The goal was to program the missile with software to perform certain turns, pull G forces, make sure the missile left the container launch vehicle properly, and other tests.
The expensive seeker is not put on the front of the missile while the back end of the missile is in test, Moody said. The seeker will be matched to the rest of the missile and the tests will use the same flight information that would normally be used in a tactical mission–where the missile would go, what kind of target it will seek, whether it is moving or stationary and test the capability of the missile to perform. The guided flight test phase will start off with single shots and progress to multiple shots and be tested in different environments.
The July 22 tests and the “success of Control Test Vehicle-2, CTV-3 and CTV-4 allows us to conclude the first phase of controlled test flights,” Speet said.
The Army and Netfires reported successful tests earlier in the month (Defense Daily, July 17).
To prove the missile’s stability during flight, the test stressed the airframe to its limits using high-gravitational force maneuvers. The PAM joined the network after launch and operated as a node on the net throughout the flight using its onboard radio.
“The success of CTV-4 demonstrates the robustness of the PAM, which is designed to meet the warfighter’s needs,” Col. Doug Dever, Army NLOS-LS project manager, said in the July 30 statement. “This advanced weapon system gives the commander a platform-independent system solution that provides organic, precision indirect fire support to the brigade combat team.”