Military Times:
The Air Force wants to extend the maximum range of its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile in response to growing threats in Eastern Europe and the western Pacific.
Lockheed Martin received a $37.7 million contract from the Air Force for continued development of a wing design for the extended range JASSM, according to a company news release.
The current design, the AGM-158B JASSM-ER, has a range of roughly 540 nautical miles. Its predecessor, the AGM-158A JASSM, has a range of 200 nautical miles, according to The National Interest.
“We’ve developed a novel design that provides additional standoff range to further increase pilot survivability in an anti-access/area-denial threat environment,” said Jason Denney, program director for Long Range Strike Systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “Our customers trust our already proven design, and we look forward to enhancing its capabilities for warfighters.”
With significant advancements in air defense systems, such as Russia’s S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air platforms, the capabilities of fourth-generation aircraft are increasingly limited. Proliferation of these advanced platforms, known as anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) weapons, has become a growing problem…
