By Marina Malenic
EGLIN AFB, Fla.–A stealthy cruise missile developed by the Air Force and Lockheed Martin [LMT] will officially be ready for deployment early next year, the service’s manager for the program said last week.
The multibillion-dollar Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) is expected to begin its ninth production lot in January, along with a first production lot for the extended range (ER) variant of the weapon, said Col. Stephen Demers.
“This will meet the Air Force’s initial operational capability (IOC) requirements,” Demers told reporters here.
The service eventually expects to acquire 4,900 JASSMs and JASSM-ERs, officials have said.
The ER version will first have to pass a final system-level review this summer. The variant is 75 percent common with the baseline version in its hardware and 95 percent common in its software, according to officials. The unique ER subsystems passed final reviews in April.
After years of testing difficulties and cost growth, the Pentagon last year threatened to terminate the program unless a new round of tests demonstrated significantly better reliability (Defense Daily, May 18, 2009). Last summer, the missile succeeded in 15 of 17 flight tests.
The Lot 7 testing yielded the “best test results in the history of the program,” said Demers. “No doubt, hands down, the success was acknowledged by everybody” at the Pentagon.
“There are so many things that can go wrong,” he added. “To have that many good shots is an incredible success.”
In January, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $245 million Lot 8 production contract for 160 more missiles. Over 1,200 units have been purchased to date, according to Demers. Production model ER missiles are expected to be delivered this year.
In the mean time, corrective actions resulting from knowledge gained from early test failures are being incorporated into both baseline and ER versions of the missile. Lockheed Martin has volunteered to fund a portion of that work.
In his annual report to Congress last year, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester questioned the Air Force’s decision to halt work on an electronic fuze for the missile. Four of 26 missiles tested in 2009 had fuze problems, according to the report.
Demers told reporters that the fuze gets “a little bit of a bad rap” for some of the early test failures. Nonetheless, he said the program is pursuing a block upgrade plan for the component. And in the mean time, quality control has been tightened and other modifications to improve reliability have been made. He said the Air Force is investigating the possibility of changing its fuze supplier, but those efforts “haven’t panned out to date.”
“The Air Force has decided that the most practical and expedient approach was to improve the current fuze, and we have done so tremendously since the Lot 5 timeframe,” he added.
Five planned flight tests this summer are to be the first of the production-representative version of JASSM that includes all the operational software.
“These all now officially count for the [operational test] program,” Demers said. A total of 21 shots is planned.
Asked whether there has been any movement on foreign sales of the missile, the colonel said there has been “a lot of interest” but no decisions to go forward yet from the U.S. government.
“We’re not approved for export,” he said. “JASSM is a serious capability, so the U.S. is being very careful on foreign military sales.”
JASSM has been demonstrated on the B-1, B-2, B-52 and F-16 aircraft. Future platforms include the F-15E, F/A-18 and F-35.