BAE Systems has received an $8 million deal to develop new precision-guidance kits to the Army aimed to improve the accuracy of 155-millimeter artillery munitions.
Under the deal, announced Jan. 30, BAE is tasked with developing new kits to enable Army munitions to make in-flight course corrections in environment where GPS systems may be jammed.
“Our kits will provide this capability for the current stock of 155-millimeter munitions and future munitions designed to provide significantly greater range,” Marc Casseres, BAE director of precision guidance and sensor solutions, said in a statement. “We were selected for this program because of our expertise in precision-guidance technology and our ability to achieve a high level of engineering and manufacturing maturity.”
BAE’s precision-guidance kits provide trajectory corrections to improve the strike accuracy of munitions and assist with logistical sustainment.
“The kits will be designed to work with standard 155mm artillery shells, which can be fired from the M777 Lightweight Towed Howitzer and M109A6 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzer,” Mark Daly, a spokesman for the company, told Defense Daily. “They will be designed to have increased capability in GPS-degraded environments.”
This latest contract was awarded by the Army’s Defense Ordnance Technology Consortium in fall 2017.