A Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) completed a Product Upgrade Verification (PUV) flight test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., on Sept. 18. The missile, produced by Lockheed Martin [LMT], successfully navigated through a preplanned route and struck its intended target.
PUV flight tests are designed to test new hardware. The primary test objective was to demonstrate Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver performance in a jamming environment.
Earlier in the year, JASSM was successful in 14 of 16 flight tests conducted by the Air Force.
The seventh JASSM production lot is under contract toward a total objective of 4,900 JASSM and JASSM-ER (Extended Range). The baseline JASSM is also produced for foreign customers. JASSM is integrated on the B-1, B-2, B-52 and F-16 aircraft. Future platforms include the F-15E, F/A-18 and F-35.
A 2,000-pound class weapon with a penetrator/blast fragmentation warhead, JASSM cruises autonomously in adverse weather, day or night, using a state-of-the-art infrared seeker in addition to the anti-jam GPS to find a specific aimpoint on the target.