By Geoff Fein
Raytheon [RTN] has entered into a licensing agreement with Netherlands-based Stork-Fokker to explore ways in which the two companies can combine efforts on the extended range variant of the Joint Stand Off Weapon (JSOW), according to a Raytheon official.
“One of the exciting things we are doing, as a global company, we are trying to look for partnerships,” John O’Brien, program director for JSOW, told Defense Daily yesterday.
“To make this happen, particularly while we are in the early design stages, before you ever begin to think about manufacturing stages, we are working with a company in the Netherlands called Stork-Fokker,” he added.
“We just recently had licensing in place so they can look at what we are doing. We’ve already looked at what they can do and it’s pretty exciting to see a match there,” he said.
Stork-Fokker has a lot of experience in a lot of mechanical structure aspects and some work around fuels systems, O’Brien added.
Discussions between Raytheon and Stork-Fokker have been ongoing over the past year, he said, but the licensing has only been in place a few months.
“With licensing in place, it allows us to explore in more detail their capabilities and our needs and to try and match up to each other,” O’Brien said.
Although JSOW-ER (extended range) is not currently a program of record, Raytheon is investing in the new weapon so then when the Navy decides to issue a request for proposals, Raytheon will be ahead of the curve, O’Brien said.
The company is taking an existing Hamilton-Sundstrand [UTX] engine, currently used on the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD), and incorporating it into a JSOW.
“The engine is a Hamilton-Sundstrand engine proven in flight multiple times,” O’Brien added.
Raytheon has done some functional ground testing that will lead up to captive tests this summer, he said.
“[We’ll] take JSOW-ER, put it on civilian aircraft, and test it in its environments, with airflows, exhaust, run the engine and do simulated flights,” O’Brien said. “All of that will lead up to a free flight that we currently have planned for the first half of ’09.”
Raytheon is touting JSOW-ER, also known as Block IV, as a weapon that can deliver a range of 300 nautical miles for $350,000 or less.
“The Navy has a need for an extended range weapon with that kind of range,” O’Brien said. “So that’s why we have been pushing hard for more than a year for a JSOW-ER version.”
Additionally, JSOW-ER will extend the capability of JSOW-C1, he added.
The C1 variant takes the current Navy JSOW-C, which has a seeker on the front and a two stage warhead and adds a data link. “That’s the developmental effort that we are underway with right now,” O’Brien said.
Adding a data link to the JSOW C will make JSOW-C1 the first networked weapon, he added.
“As block numbers increase, particularly from C to C1, C1 will do everything a C will do. [It has] similar capabilities, [it] still hits land targets, [we] just add a moving maritime capability,” O’Brien said. “It’s all kind of demonstrated technology. The accuracy has been phenomenal, reliability has been phenomenal. We are adding a data link that will add a new capability.”
C1 development is under contract. However, O’Brien noted that C1 production is not.
“That will be an FY ’09 procurement,” he said. “And then JSOW-ER is something that could be made available sometime after that.”
Currently, Raytheon is building only JSOW-C variants for the Navy. In FY ’09, the company will switch over production and begin building only JSOW-C1s, O’Brien said.
Raytheon does have a technical requirement to be able to upgrade the software on board JSOW and do it within a certain time, O’Brien said.
“So not only is the missile reprogrammable, but the missiles are actually connected to interfaces on the containers themselves so you can plug in to a container that has a missile inside [and] download new software while it is out in the bunker or magazine,” he explained.
A unique aspect of the JSOW-C1 data link is that it is also being used on Raytheon’s Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) II and on Boeing‘s [BA] Harpoon Block III.
The intent is for the data link to be a common commodity that multiple programs could pick up and use, O’Brien explained.
“It is a small package with a lot of capability. We think it is pretty versatile,” he said.
“We are the prime and working hand-in-hand with Boeing to make it successful [on Harpoon Block III]…that’s unique.”
The Navy brought Raytheon and Boeing together, and they competed and selected a single vendor to provide the weapon’s data link, Capt. Mat Winter, the Navy’s program manager for Precision Strike Weapons, told Defense Daily in a previous interview (Defense Daily Jan. 4).
“[It’s] an incredible cost avoidance to the taxpayer and for the life-cycle for both of these [weapons]…a very good business case for commonality for capability,” Winter added.
While the JSOW-C1 modifies the C variant by adding the data link and updating the weapon’s software, the lethality package stays the same, as does the seeker.
“So when we talk about testing it, we are not going to have to go through a complete series of lethality testing because it’s already done that,” Winter said.
“The real testing, along with Harpoon Block III, is that interoperability and systems of systems validation,” he said.