Pentagon’s No.1 weapons supplier Lockheed Martin Corp received new U.S. Navy contract for work on theLong Range Anti-Ship Missile, the Defense Department announced.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin Corp. is awarded an undefinitized contract action established under delivery order with a not-to-exceed value of $174,9 million.
This delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement provides for engineering, testing, product support and ancillary support to update the current Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, components and systems required to achieve objective requirements in the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare Increment 1 Capability Description Document.
LRASM is a precision-guided, anti-ship standoff missile based on the successful Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER). It is is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links and GPS navigation in electronic warfare environments.
LRASM will play a significant role in ensuring military access to operate in open ocean/blue waters, owing to its enhanced ability to discriminate and conduct tactical engagements from extended ranges.
Lockheed Martin’s website said the LRASM technology will reduce dependence on ISR platforms, network links, and GPS navigation in aggressive electronic warfare environments. This advanced guidance operation means the weapon can use gross target cueing data to find and destroy its pre-defined target in denied environments. Precision lethality against surface and land targets ensures the system will become an important addition to the US Navy warfighter’s arsenal. LRASM provides range, survivability, and lethality that no other current system provides.
The LRASM successfully completed B-1B integration and flight testing, leading the way to an early operational capability (EOC) declaration by the U.S. Air Force in December 2018. The program now marches on with F/A-18E/F flight testing leading to an EOC milestone in 2019.
