air-launched weapons guidance sensors | Military aerospace

RIDGECREST, Calif. – US Navy air weapons experts ask Lockheed Martin Corp. to upgrade several different aerial munitions to improve accuracy, capacity and launchability from unmanned aircraft.

Officials with the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in Ridgecrest, Calif., announced plans Thursday to award a sole-source contract to the missile and missile segment. Lockheed Martin fire control in Orlando, Florida. for rapid technological development on four of the company's air-launched weapons. The value of the next contract has not yet been negotiated.

Lockheed Martin will modify the company's Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JASSM), Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), and Hellfire Missile.

Modifications could include line-of-sight/no-line-of-sight (LOS/N-LOS) technologies for sensors and seekers, multi-mode seekers, tube-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), employment of autonomous weapons , precision targeting. , aircraft and weapons integration and similar applications.

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Lockheed Martin will conduct technology demonstrations, product enhancements, technology insertion, systems integration, mission analysis, architectures, concept of operations (CONOPS) development, utility analysis traditional military and technical analysis for JASSM, LRASM, JAGM and Hellfire air weapons.

JASSM, in service since 2009, is a long-range, precision standoff conventional air-to-ground missile for U.S. and allied forces, designed to destroy high-value, well-defended, fixed and relocatable targets. The JASSM has a range of 230 miles, while the extended-range JASSM-ER has a range of 620 miles. Only American B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, as well as the F-16 jet fighter, can fire the JASSM.

LRASM is designed to detect and destroy high priority surface ship targets within groups of ships at extended ranges in electronic warfare jamming environments. It is a precision-guided anti-ship missile based on the Lockheed Martin Joint Air-Surface Missile Extended-Range (JASSM-ER) missile. Only the US Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet jet fighter-bomber and the Air Force's B-1B Lancer long-range strategic bomber can fire LRASMs today.

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The Lockheed Martin JAGM features a multi-mode guidance section with a semi-active laser (SAL) sensor for precision strike and a fire-and-forget millimeter wave (MMW) radar to move targets in all weather conditions. The small missile is nearly six feet long, seven inches in diameter and weighs 108 pounds. The weapon is designed to fire from combat helicopters.

The HELLFIRE II family of missiles includes four variants: the high-explosive anti-tank missile (AGM-114K), which eliminates all known and projected armor threats; the cluster missile (AGM-114M), which destroys “soft” targets such as buildings, bunkers, light armored vehicles and caves; the Longbow HELLFIRE (AGM-114L) millimeter wave (MMW) radar, which provides fire-and-forget and adverse weather capability; and the “thermobaric” HELLFIRE (AGM-114N). Hellfire is intended for combat helicopters and drones.

For more information, contact Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control online at www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are/business-areas/missiles-and-fire-control/products.html , or the Naval Air Warfare Center. Weapons Division at www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd.