Jay Clemens
Lockheed Martin has begun work to integrate the U.S. Navy’s semi-autonomous air-launched missile onto the F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft, Electronic Component News Magazine reported Tuesday.
Kris Osborn writes the Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency jointly developed the long range anti-ship missile as a surface and submarine-launched missile designed to track and hit targets.
The LRASM system is scheduled to enter operations by 2019 for the Navy and 2018 for the U.S. Air Force, according to the report.
With a range of 230 nautical miles, the missile has a built-in semi-autonomous guidance technology in order to avoid obstacles in flight, the magazine reports.
Lockheed is also configuring the weapon to fire from a surface-ships’ vertical launch system and submarine firing tubes, Osborn reports.
“We wanted to make sure it can exit the canister when the booster lights up and the missile stays intact,†said Hady Mourad, program director for missiles at Lockheed.
“We’re furthering the maturity of our surface launched integration and planning on doing a few flight tests in the near future,†added Mourad.
