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NNS020807-07. HARM Upgrade Live Fire Experiences Successful Test

By Vicky Falcon, NAVAIR Public Affairs

CHINA LAKE, Calif. (NNS) -- The International High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) Upgrade Project (IHUP) successfully completed its second Precision Navigation Upgrade (PNU) test at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) western test range last week.

The Precision Navigation Upgrade is designed to greatly improve HARM's capability to detect, locate and destroy enemy air defenses. It will improve HARM's accuracy in restrictive areas in order to minimize collateral damage and fratricide to non-military targets. This is to be accomplished through the inclusion of the global positioning system and a new inertial measurement unit (GPS/IMU).

The GPS/IMU improvements will enhance the anti-radiation homing capability to destroy surface-to-air missile sites in specific missile impact zones. Operators may also input zones of exclusion to prevent the anti-radiation homing from searching over specific geographic locations preventing the destruction of non-military targets.

This week's live firing was performed to demonstrate the missile's ability to identify a target outside the missile impact zone and flex to a secondary target within the zone.

All test objectives were achieved; the missile successfully identified, tracked and guided to the simulated air defense radar target, passing within lethal radius of the HARM warhead and impacting within the specified impact zone.

"The success of the contractor test firings gives us the confidence to move into a compressed government test period," said Capt. Chris Powers, HARM program manager at NAVAIR. "The rigorous and innovative work of our team enables NAVAIR to provide dominant combat effects and matchless capabilities to our warfighters."

Continued hardware and software upgrades have enabled the HARM weapon system to stay abreast of advancing radar threats.

The IHUP is a tri-national cooperative effort between the United States, Germany and Italy to upgrade the hardware and software of both the HARM B and C missiles. The associated contractor team of Raytheon Missile Systems (U.S.), BGT (Germany), and MBDA (Italy) was comprised to conduct each partner nation's respective work share.

The HARM program is managed by the Program Executive Office, Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aviation.