Lockheed Martin has been awarded an additional $133 million to begin engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) which is destined to serve the US Air Force and US Navy.
Forty months of EMD work was authorised on 9 November by US Department of Defense acquisition chief Jacques Gansler, with the signing of the acquisition decision memorandum.
EMD follows the completion of the 24-month programme definition and risk reduction (PDRR) phase of the joint USAF/USN weapons project, which is worth more than $2 billion.
The Pentagon selected Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems last April to develop and build the stealthy weapon. Lockheed Martin beat Boeing in the competition to provide at least 2,400 JASSMs to the USAF.
The USN has also earmarked the delivery of an undisclosed number of weapons, but its support for the programme has been lukewarm at best and no final decision has been taken. The navy has previously preferred Boeing's SLAM-ER Plus weapon to meet its short-term requirement.
Production of JASSM is scheduled to begin in January 2001, with annual peak production reaching 360 missiles. Under the original schedule, Lockheed Martin or Boeing would have been picked in August to begin EMD, and initial flight tests would have preceded the selection.
In the event, however, Lockheed Martin won without flight evaluation, and the start of EMD was put back by four months, to November. The Pentagon saved money by eliminating one competitor before the end of the PDRR phase. Stretching this phase until November reduced risk to an acceptable level.
In August, catapult-assisted launches and arrested-landing flight tests on a Boeing F/A-18C were conducted at the Naval Air Warfare Development Center, Patuxent River, Maryland.
Source: Flight International