Canberra to co-operate with USA on developing maritime interdiction version
Australia and the USA are negotiating a joint development plan to field a maritime interdiction capability for Lockheed Martin's AGM-158 JASSM cruise missile. The bilateral effort will leverage work carried out by Lockheed and the US Air Force on an advanced concept technology demonstration of weapon datalinks for the stealthy missile, and will be based on the Link 16 standard.
"This is a continuation of that programme," says Lockheed's Australian JASSM project director Bob Griswell. Australian requirements will initially take precedence, he says, with the USA "picking up the programme in fiscal year 2009 with air force funding to finish it up".
A key Australian requirement for the maritime strike mode will be the missile's ability to perform very low-level flight during its terminal attack, which Griswell says will be "almost, but not quite" a sea-skimming profile. "The plan is for it to descend to a reasonably low level as it approaches the ship."
Lockheed is already conducting a JASSM maritime interdiction study using Australian funding, he confirms. The lessons learned during the manufacturer's current work will be fed into the planned bilateral development, he adds.
The new anti-ship capability is expected to be delivered under a spiral development process. "We do have a small upgrade that uses the seeker only to do the maritime interdiction, but the full maritime interdiction will include a weapon datalink," Griswell says. The datalink capability is also likely to become standard equipment on all future production-series JASSM weapons, including an extended-range version.
Australia is now acquiring the JASSM as the primary strike weapon for its Boeing F/A-18A/B fighters. An initial six instrumented flight test articles arrived in Sydney on 24 March and will be handed over to the Royal Australian Air Force on 30 April to facilitate in-country flight testing. The missile could also later be integrated with the RAAF's future fleet of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets.
Source: Flight International
