Lockheed Martin [LMT] has landed its third international customer for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM): Poland.
The Air Force has awarded the company a foreign military sales contract to provide JASSM to the Polish Air Force for its F-16 fleet, Lockheed said on Monday. The FMS case—which includes hardware and software, documentation, program management and 40 missiles—has an estimated value of $500 million.
Lockheed Martin will begin production and delivery of Poland’s first test missiles in 2016, Alan Jackson, the company’s director of strike systems, told Defense Daily. Polish Ministry of Defense officials have said the goal is to field JASSM by March 2017.
Poland has also expressed interest in upgrading to the extended range version of the missile, JASSM-ER, but have not submitted an FMS request, Jackson said. Should it go forward with that request, it could become the first international country approved for that capability.
“JASSM provides Poland with operational flexibility, reliability and mission effectiveness to meet their national defense requirements,” Joe Garland, vice president of business development at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said in a statement. “JASSM gives our allies a powerful, vital and affordable cruise missile capability.”
Poland will join Australia and Finland as the only foreign operators of JASSM, a precision-guided cruise missile armed with a blast-fragmentation warhead. The missiles are equipped with an infrared seeker and a digital, anti-jam GPS.
Australia has declared full operational capability for the missile system, which has been integrated onto the country’s F/A-18 fleet, Jackson said.
Lockheed Martin is in the midst of integrating JASSM onto Finland’s F-18C/D Hornets as part of a 2012 contract. Flight tests are slated to begin “shortly,” with the first missile deliveries occurring after that, said Jackson, who declined to elaborate on the schedule.
Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 1,700 JASSM missiles, which are integrated on the Air Force’s B-1, B-2, B-52, F-16 and F-15E. The missiles are manufactured at its facilities in Alabama, a company news release stated.