By Geoff Fein
Raytheon [RTN] is hoping its experience in weapon systems and its partnership with Boeing [BA] will lead to a Navy contract to develop the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) for use on Super Hornet aircraft.
The program, which began almost a decade ago as an Army effort to replace both TOW and Hellfire, migrated to a joint effort between the Army and Navy, with fixed wing aircraft becoming the driver for design, Steven Ignat, director, business development advanced programs, told Defense Daily at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space expo in Washington this week.
Earlier this month, the Navy issued a request for proposals (RFP) for JAGM, Ignat said. Responses are due by mid-May and source selection for a 27-30-month risk reduction effort is expected in September, he added.
“There will be potentially two teams developing prototype solutions for a fly-off of three missiles, which will directly move into a SDD (system design and development) downselect,” Ignat said.
The SDD phase will run about two to three years, he added.
Initial operational capability (IOC) is planned for 2016.
Besides the Raytheon-Boeing team, an entry led by Lockheed Martin [LMT] is also expected to respond to the RFP, as well as at least one other company, Ignat said.
“Teaming with Boeing, we feel our combined team provides the best of all worlds. They build [the AH-64] Apache [helicopter] and Super Hornet, they understand the integration requirements,” Ignat said. “We’ve integrated a large majority of missiles, as has Boeing, on these platforms. We certainly understand the whole evolution of direct attack fixed wing weapons, from Maverick to TOWs.”
Raytheon is also making use of a number of its own programs for the JAGM effort including the Non Line of Sight Precision Attack Missile (NLOS PAM) and two or three dual mode and tri-mode seeker programs, Ignat added.
“We are able to leverage a lot of technology out of these seekers to make this particular tri-mode solution very affordable for the Army and Navy,” he said.
“Both the Army and Navy want affordable precision. The way you get that when you don’t have quantity is by leveraging technology being developed by other programs,” Ignat added. “Really, that’s the only way to do it.”
But there is another issue, Ignat pointed out, that is drawing concern from Raytheon. Because the Initial Capabilities Document (ICD) for JAGM was crafted back in 2001 and the Capabilities Development Document (CDD) was written in 2003, and because of delays in the program, there is no threshold requirement for networking capability for JAGM.
“And that’s one of the issues we’ve had. One of the things we have been talking to the Navy about, every new missile we are working on has a networking capability…a data link,” Ignat said. “Because what will happen [is that] we won’t include it and the other team won’t include it because it is not in the threshold requirements. And we are not sure that in 2016 that makes a lot of sense.”
A real concern here is that without the networking capability in the threshold, none of the companies responding to the RFP will address it, he added. “And if nobody addresses it, it won’t be there.”
“Now, you have a problem because you have to find the real estate space to put data links in,” Ignat said.
Raytheon has also been trying to talk to the Navy about other antiquated requirements that remain in the document. “We have been taking to the Army and Navy all along about this,” Ignat said.
Ignat acknowledged that some things, such as key performance parameters, have been changed.
“But the one about networking hasn’t, and we are concerned about that,” he added.
Raytheon doesn’t think that it makes sense for a missile that is going to be fielded in 2016 not to have a baseline networking capability, Ignat said. “You’ve got FCS (Future Combat System) out there, you got the F/A-18E/F out there, and JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) is coming online.”
“So that is one of the issues…it’s one thread we are pulling, and it’s really a concern because if we go down the path of designing this missile, on this risk reduction phase it would be nice to get some indication that the services would like that capability because if you don’t tell us now we won’t design it in,” Ignat said.
“It doesn’t make sense to put a dumb missile out in 2016,” he added. “I have a tri-mode seeker, an F-18 with an AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar that can track 50 targets, but I can’t talk to the missile to redirect it.”
Ignat noted that the F-35 JSF is not a threshold, but an objective requirement. The threshold platforms are the F/A-18E/F, and Apache and AH-1 Cobra helicopters. A second tier of platforms includes the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and the Army’s new light attack helicopter. Beyond that is JSF, he added.
The program of record calls for approximately a 33,000-missile buy, Ignat said. There is about $7.3 billion in the long-range plan supporting development and production, he added. “It’s a substantial program.”
JAGM is required to have a standoff range of 16 kilometers for helicopters and 28km for fixed wing, Ignat said.