Lockheed Martin [LMT] said Tuesday it has expanded its teaming agreement with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
to include jointly manufacturing and marketing Rafael’s Smart, Precise Impact and Cost-Effective (SPICE) 250 guided munition for the U.S. defense market.
The companies noted this is the first time the SPICE 250 precision-guided bomb, currently fielded in Israel, will be available for sale to the U.S. as well as the Polish military.
“Lockheed Martin’s deep expertise in weapon system integration will help us adapt SPICE 250 to meet U.S. standards,” Dave Pantano, Lockheed Martin’s program director, said in a statement. “We’re excited to leverage this experience and offer this unique, proven weapon system to aircraft operators for additional mission flexibility where it’s needed most.”
In 2019, the two companies signed an agreement to offer Rafael’s SPICE 1000 and 2000 variants to the U.S. market, which are add-on kits to bring a precision-guided capability to bombs as opposed to the SPICE 250, which is an all-up round (Defense Daily, May 17 2019).
Lockheed Martin and Rafael noted the SPICE family of stand-off, autonomous, air-to-surface weapon systems are designed to work in GPS-denied environments and have been in service with the Israeli Air Force since 2003 on platforms such as F-15s and F-16s.
“GPS is not required to operate any of the products within the SPICE family, allowing for operations in a variety of locations and adverse environments,” Alon Shlomi, vice president of Rafael’s Air to Surface Directorate, said in a statement. “By expanding our teaming agreement with Lockheed Martin, we’re able to offer the entire product portfolio to the U.S. military – providing warfighters with the opportunity to enhance mission flexibility.”