The Air Force has completed a capabilities-based assessment for a follow-on cruise missile that looks at more than just the attributes of such a future munition, a service official said recently
Maj. Gen. Donald Alston, assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrent and nuclear integration at Air Force headquarters, told reporters the service expects to take the capabilities-based assessment through the requirements-development process in the spring. An Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) could kick off in August or September, he said.
Alston said the capabilities-based assessment is “thorough” and “comprehensive.”
“It would be wrong to say just that it’s a cruise-missile follow-on kind of concept,” he said following a House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee hearing.
“It’s a broad thing about what’s the environment going to be at this stage in the process,” he added. “It’s a broad examination of what the threats are and what are the capabilities you’re going to need to meet that threat. But one of the fundamental things that we’re trying to achieve is a follow-on capability to the current air-launch cruise missile.”
At this point, with the capabilities-based assessment done, the Air Force has simply validated “the capabilities and the environment that we anticipate these capabilities will be required” in, he said.
The Air Force next-generation stealthy cruise missile now in production, Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, has suffered setbacks.