By Geoff Fein
The Navy earlier this month conducted another successful test shot of the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), proving out systems that will improve the capability of the High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM).
“The test exercised all the new components of the AARGM missile, specifically the GPS along with the ARH (anti-radiation homing)…improved ARH performance…and then the millimeter wave end game terminal guidance,” Capt. Larry Egbert, program manager direct and time sensitive strike, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“In addition to that, it also exercised the weapon impact assessment transmission,” he added.
Just prior to impact, AARGM “talks to national assets above on the status of the missile,” Egbert explained. While the technology does not provide damage assessment, it can detail where AARGM is headed and what the missile is guiding to, he added.
“It scored a direct hit on the intended target,” Egbert said of the most recent test.
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment of major weapon programs (GAO-09-326SP) noted AARGM could face funding shortfalls if prime contractor Alliant Techsystems [ATK] were unable to complete developmental testing by March 2009.
“We are finishing out the developmental tests…we’ll finish this summer. We don’t have any funding shortfalls,” Egbert said.
The Navy is in the verification phase of developmental test on the AARGM, he added.
Once the developmental tests wrap up, the Navy will take AARGM into operational evaluation (OPEVAL) later this summer, Egbert said.
“That’s a nine-month OPEVAL period. We’ll finish up in 2010,” he added.
A production contract is expected to be awarded to ATK in December and the program will enter initial operational capability in November 2010, Egbert said.
The Navy intends to procure 1,750 of the tactical all-up rounds along with an additional 121 captive air training missiles, he noted.
“We are using our existing inventory of HARM and upgrading them with the AARGM kit, so the AARGM is an all-new seeker, which will go in the HARM missile,” Egbert said.
AARGM will also provide a modified control section. “We take the old control [out] to modify them. Those go back to the rest of the missile,” he said.
The new components along with the legacy warhead, motor and fins are all reassembled to create AARGM, Egbert said.
The AARGM kit will not add any additional weight or change the shape of the existing HARM, he added.
“We did have some benefits where we were not qualifying a new shape, a new weight, so there were some definite savings there that we didn’t have to go develop a new shape or new mass properties for the weapon,” Egbert said.
“We change out the guidance section, put on a new guidance section, then make some modifications to the control section. The warhead and rocket motor are the same,” James McEvoy, deputy program manager PMA-242, told Defense Daily in the same interview.
“The new seeker is the same shape and weight as the old seeker,” McEvoy added.
“But with greater capability inside,” Egbert noted. “Even though we are upgrading out inventory of HARM to AARGM, our plan is to still carry both variants in the fleet.”
The Navy’s plans call for initial integration on to the F-18C/D Hornets. OPEVAL will take place on a F-18C/D, Egbert said.
“Then integration on the [F/A-18] E, F and G. That effort is funded and has begun,” he added.
There are no plans currently to integrate AARGM onto the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), Egbert said.
“It doesn’t fit inside the internal bay, and the main reason for that is the mid body wings are pretty big,” he said. “If there was ever a need or requirement to put it under the wing, that would be how AARGM would have to go. But I do believe that it is an objective in our requirements document. It’s one of the objective aircraft…there are a lot of them out there.”
But there is no funding for integration onto JSF, Egbert added.
The Navy has three more live missile firings planned for AARGM, but Egbert pointed out that is not all the program office is doing.
“The testing that we do involves both chamber testing, hardware in the loop…we do captive carry testing using a [Hawker] Beechcraft as a test bed and we do F-18 captives, so we have a number of ways that we test the missile to verify it,” he said. “We do have three missile shots remaining, but there is a significant amount of work beyond that that we do.”