By Marina Malenic
The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program resumed flight testing last week with yet another failed detonation, the Air Force has said.
Testing resumed last Friday with two missiles launched at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. “One mission resulted in target impact with a high order detonation,” an Air Force spokeswoman said. “The other mission resulted in target impact, but no apparent high order detonation.”
A series of 10 JASSM reliability assessment flight tests began in November. Testing was suspended at that time when two missiles failed to detonate upon impact with a target. The service’s Failure Review Board has investigated those incidents, and corrective measures have been put in place, according to JASSM program officials (Defense Daily, Jan. 29).
The service said that Friday’s incident does not appear to be a repeat of the previous failures, and the review board has been reconvened to investigate the exact cause.
“Based on real-time observations from the control room telemetry, this does not appear to be a repeat of the failure mode seen in the 7 Nov. ’08 test event,” the Air Force spokeswoman said. “A Failure Review Board has been convened and investigation started to determine root cause of this failure.”
An Air Force source familiar with the program said that two more shots had been scheduled for Feb. 16 but that testing has again been suspended until the board determines the cause of the latest detonation failure.
“It looks very much like another fuze problem, because the issue was again with detonation,” the source said.
According to the latest department-wide testing report drafted last year by the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation, officials have recommended further fuze testing on the munition.
“The continued failures in [Electronic Safe and Arm Fuze] sled tests indicated that further evaluation of the electronic fuze is required,” the JASSM report reads. “The current plan ensures adequate testing on the fuze in progressively challenging environments in live fire sled testing and flight tests.”
However, the Pentagon’s test director also expresses concern that “pressure to maintain the production schedule could reduce reliability improvements, not incorporate corrections as needed, and/or reduce planned adequate testing.”
Program managers have said the November test failures would not result in an increase in development or production costs, but the resultant delay has stretched the testing schedule into February of next year.
Two more sets of 10 shots are to be conducted this year, in addition to the set that resumed last week.
A Defense Acquisition Board review of the program had been scheduled for Dec. 5, 2008, but it was postponed by Pentagon acquisition chief John Young. It has not been rescheduled, according to Young’s office.
Last May, the Pentagon allowed the program to resume following cost overruns and several flight test failures. The program encountered significant cost growth in the previous year and failed four flight tests within the same week. The breach of a congressional cost growth cap eventually led to Defense Department discussions about terminating the program (Defense Daily, May 9, 2007). The Pentagon certified a restructured program for JASSM last spring (Defense Daily, May 5, 2008).
JASSM is a precision cruise missile designed for launch from outside area defenses to kill hard, medium-hardened, soft and area-type targets. The program has received over $500 million in funding since 2007.
The baseline JASSM is integrated on the B-1, B-2, B-52 bombers and F-16 fighter jets. Future platforms include the F-15E, F/A-18 and F-35. The B1-B is the primary platform for the extended range variant of JASSM while that version is still in development.