THE US AIR FORCE has selected McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) to develop the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and produce guidance kits which convert free-fall bombs into precision-guided weapons.
MDA had competed against Lockheed Martin to produce the global-positioning/inertial-navigation guidance kits for as many as 74,000 US Air Force and USNavy bombs.
With JDAM production scheduled to begin in 1997, fabrication of the kits is expected to continue well into the next century. The JDAM work has an estimated value of up to $2 billion.
MDA has been given an initial $62.6 million to complete development of the JDAM. The contract includes production of hardware and flight-testing, with options for up to five production lots.
The JDAM programme involves attaching the guidance kit, in a modified tail-cone, to Mk83/450kg and Mk84/900kg gravity bombs and to the BLU-109 450kg tactical-munitions dispenser. Raytheon was recently selected to demonstrate a synthetic-aperture radar-seeker on the JDAM.
MDA's team includes Loral (mission computer), Honeywell (inertial-measurement unit), Rockwell-Collins (global-positioning receiver), HR Textron (tail-actuator subsystem) and Lockley Manufacturing (tail-fairing structure).
Source: Flight International
