By Marina Malenic
The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program is “back on track,” and the new Extended Range (JASSM-ER) variant successfully completed an integration flight test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., last month, Air Force and Lockheed Martin [LMT] officials said yesterday.
“This was a demonstration of the maximum range capability of ER, which over doubles the standoff range of the baseline JASSM,” Col. Steve Demers, the JASSM program manager, said during an Oct. 16 teleconference with reporters.
“The baseline variant [range] is greater than 200 miles, and the ER version is greater than 500 miles,” Demers added. “It’s really a significant increase in the range.”
The effort was the fourth JASSM-ER flight test. Development resumed in June, a month after the Pentagon gave the JASSM program as a whole the go-ahead following cost overruns and several flight test failures. The program encountered significant cost growth last 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 in the spring (Defense Daily, May 5).
Air Force and Lockheed Martin officials said the program is now on target and reliability issues have been solved.
“JASSM is out of Nunn-McCurdy,” said Alan Jackson, JASSM program director at Lockheed Martin, referring to the congressional cost-growth cap. “The program is back on track.”
The baseline JASSM is currently in its seventh production lot. Lockheed Martin officials said they anticipate a “roughly 50-50 mix” of baseline and ER variants in the 4,900 units they have been asked to produce.
A Milestone C production decision for the ER variant is still scheduled for 2010, according to Demers.
“We hope to be in production as early as 2010,” said Jackson.
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 received $156.5 million in the fiscal year 2007 budget and $160 million in FY ’08. The Pentagon’s FY ’09 budget includes $240.3 million for the missile.
The baseline JASSM is integrated on the B-1, B-2, B-52 and F-16 aircraft. 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 the missile is still in development.