Breakup, Interrupted: JASSM Missile Back on Track

JASSM with F-16 The AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program waged a difficult battle to survive with proposed Congressional cuts that would have eliminated its procurement budget. This would have forced the USAF to go with the Navy’s choice for this mission: the SLAM-ER. Yet the FY 2006 budget ended up going with the US Senate’s approach, appropriating the requested $67 million for continued research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) and another $98.7 million from the $150 million requested for procurement of 75 missiles. eDefense Online notes that $165+ million in funding, plus two recent test flight successes, appear to have put JASSM back on track. Meanwhile, Lockheed has found innovative approaches re: mating the missile to its strike aircraft systems, as its efforts morph toward a Universal Armaments Interface (UAI) that would lower costs and development time. eDefense [ed: link no longer available] notes that Lockheed Martin is recommending an allocation of $70 million to continued JASSM production in FY 2006. The other $30 million would be put towards reliability improvements such as replacing obsolete subsystems et. al., and making upgrades based on operational experience with the B-1 “Bone” and B-52 bombers. Meanwhile, longer-endurance versions (JASSM-ER, JASSM-XR) are […]