By Marina Malenic
Prime contractor Raytheon [RTN] and its partner Boeing [BA] completed flight testing of its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile’s (JAGM) fixed-wing launcher and instrumented measurement vehicle (IMV) on the Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet aircraft, the companies said recently.
Raytheon is competing against Lockheed Martin [LMT] for the contract, which could be worth upward of $5 billion over the life of the program.
An IMV is the same size as a JAGM round and contains equipment that evaluates the missiles performance in flight. The tests are a first step toward qualifying JAGM for Super Hornet employment. The Raytheon-Boeing team’s launcher is based on the BRU-33 and previous Boeing launchers.
JAGM, designed to replace three legacy systems, is expected to offer improved lethality, range and cost savings compared with older weapons like the Hellfire missile.
Raytheon and Boeing executives at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference and exposition in Washington last week also announced that they have tested a production-representative version of their JAGM in the latest round of tests. It included the rocket fuel the development version of the system it will use, Bob Francois, Raytheon’s vice president of advanced missiles and unmanned systems, told reporters during an Oct. 26 briefing. The companies also tested the ability for the missile’s three seeker modes to share information and to hand off targeting information, he added.
Last month, Raytheon’s use of a different rocket body in early tests had raised questions about the company’s integration work. Francois and his Boeing counterpart, Debra Rub, said their system is now at Technical Readiness Level 6-plus, or production-ready.
The Raytheon-Boeing JAGM features a tri-mode seeker with semiactive laser (SAL), uncooled imaging infrared and millimeter wave guidance.
JAGM is intended for a wide variety of platforms–the Army’s AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, ARH-70 Arapaho scout helicopters and MQ-1C Grey Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles, Marine Corps AH-1Z Super Cobra helicopters; and Navy MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopters and the F/A-18E/F.
The Raytheon team has hit the target three out of three times in government-funded tests this year. Lockheed Martin has missed two out of three times, though they plan to pay for additional tests, company executives said last week.
JAGM will eventually replace legacy Hellfire, air-launched TOW and Maverick missiles. The program evolved from the canceled Joint Common Missile program, which Lockheed Martin had been developing.
The missile will first be integrated on the Super Hornet, the Apache and the Marine AH-1Z helicopter. Initial Operational Capability is expected for these three in 2016. In 2017, the Grey Eagle will receive the missile as will the MH-60R and the OH-58D.
The three-phase program is in the first phase, a 27-month technology development phase, which ends next month. Phase II is a 48-month System Development and Demonstration, or engineering and manufacturing development. The request for proposals, initially expected in July, has been pushed into the fall. Phase III is for Low-Rate Initial Production.
A major driver for Defense Department programs now is cost, which will be a program requirement.