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Australia plots anti-ship role for JASSM cruise missile By Peter La Franchi Canberra to co-operate with USA on developing maritime interdiction version Australia and the USA are negotiating a joint development plan to field a maritime interdiction capability for Lockheed Martin's AGM-158 JASSM cruise missile. The bilateral effort will leverage work carried out by Lockheed and the US Air Force on an advanced concept technology demonstration of weapon datalinks for the stealthy missile, and will be based on the Link 16 standard. "This is a continuation of that programme," says Lockheed's Australian JASSM project director Bob Griswell. Australian requirements will...

US refuses to sell air-to-ground missiles for Finland’s Hornet jets Officials in the Untied States have rejected a preliminary request by Finland to buy JASSM air-to-ground missiles for the US-made Hornet F-18 jet fighters used by the Finnish Air Force. Finland inquired about the purchase last autumn as part of an extensive package aimed at implementing MLU2 - the second phase of the modernisation of the Air Force’s fleet of 62 jets. The Americans had no objections to Finnish requests in other respects. Finland will thus be allowed to buy missiles to attack radar stations, as well as NATO-standard Link...

Next Generation Cruise Missile Meets Warfighters' Needs One of the newest weapons in the Air Force's arsenal, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile is truly an incredible piece of technology that gives the warfighter an affordable standoff cruise missile capable of taking out the enemy's air defenses early on in a conflict. By Staff Sgt. Ryan Hansen / Air Armament Center Public Affairs EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., March 9, 2006 – Since the late 1970s the Department of Defense has tried and failed numerous times to give the warfighter an affordable standoff cruise missile capable of taking out the...

5/6/2005 - DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- B-1B Lancer bombers here recently demonstrated their superior flexibility and air power capability by simulating 72 launches of the bomber’s newest weapon, the joint air-to-surface standoff missile during JASSM Thunder 05-01. The exercise is the first operational-level planning-to-execution exercise for the B-1B bomber featuring its new JASSM capability, base officials said. The missile is an air-to-surface, self-propelled weapon with a single warhead that has an effective range of about 230 miles. It was designed to penetrate highly defended airspace as an independent cruise missile to eliminate high-value fixed targets. It has...

ORLANDO, Fla., March 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT - News) Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), the world's first stealthy conventional cruise missile, was successfully launched Wednesday from an F-16 aircraft and precisely navigated through its second verification flight test at White Sands Missile Range, NM. The missile successfully struck the target as planned. JASSM successfully guided to its preplanned target using its internal global position system and inertial navigation capability. The inertial guidance system consists of an inertial navigation system combined with control mechanisms, allowing the path of a vehicle to be controlled according to the position...

Australia is considering buying long-range stealth cruise missiles for its F/A-18 fighters to help offset the planned early retirement of its F-111 strike bombers. It would make Australia the first country in southeast Asia to introduce self-guided land-attack cruise missiles, which can strike targets more than 200 nautical miles away - four times the range of any missile now available to the RAAF. The Government this week was examining cruise missile options, at the same time as it announced it would join the US missile defence program on the grounds that "Australia might one day be threatened by long-range missiles...

The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, next is scheduled for operational tests before going to combat units in September, but it could get to them much sooner, said Gerry Freisthler, lethal strike program director for the Air Armament Center here.

New Air Force Missile Passes Final Test .c The Associated Press EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) - A new, low-cost cruise missile flew through a window and destroyed a two-story test house in its final test flight this week, clearing the way for possible use in Iraq, an Air Force official said Friday. The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, next is scheduled for operational tests before going to combat units in September, but it could get to them much sooner, said Gerry Freisthler, lethal strike program director for the Air Armament Center here. The missiles are manufactured in...