The Navy has authorized full-rate production of a new air-to-ground missile designed to better defeat enemy countermeasures than the legacy system it is set to begin replacing.
The service plans to award a contract later this year to manufacturer ATK [ATK] for the production of 72 Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missiles (AARGM) for the Navy and nine for the Italian Air Force, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) said this week. Initial deliveries are expected in 2013.
AARGM is intended to address a current capability gap presented by the High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) that was first deployed three decades ago.
“AARGM defeats multiple countermeasures that have been developed by U.S. adversaries since HARM was deployed in the 1980’s,” NAVAIR said.
The Navy and Marine Corps plan to carry the AARGM on F/A-18s.
The decision to go into full-rate production comes following Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) of AARGM earlier this year, when it flew a total of 633 flight hours and conducted 12 live fires, NAVAIR said.