Orlando Sentinel May 07, 2008
Future of Lockheed's cruise missile is brighter
By Richard Burnett
After an uncertain two-year flight, Lockheed Martin Corp.'s advanced cruise missile has cleared a critical Pentagon hurdle that is expected to send the multibillion-dollar program into full production, military officials said this week.
In a notice to Congress, Pentagon acquisitions chief John Young declared the costly weapon system "essential to national security" -- a formal tag that sets the stage for the military to spend about $4 billion on it during the next decade.
The action culminates a critical review of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, which has been on Congress' potential cancellation list because of past cost overruns, some test misfires and technical problems.
Hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts are tied to JASSM work in Central Florida, where Lockheed Martin's missiles unit is the prime contractor. Company officials say the latest tests and cost containment measures have cleared up earlier questions about the new cruise missile.
"We have successfully demonstrated JASSM's reliability and validated the need for the world's first stealthy, standoff cruise missile," said Chris Kubasik, executive vice president of the electronic systems business, which includes Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control in Orlando.
Last year, after it ran afoul of congressional cost-overrun rules, the cruise missile program faced an uncertain future as Lockheed and the Air Force tried to get it back on course.
Pentagon officials now say the cost estimates are "reasonable," given JASSM's importance to potential military operations in the future, Young, the acquisitions chief, told Congress. It is designed to hit enemy targets undetected after being launched from standoff range -- safely outside enemy fire.
"[JASSM] ensures America has the capability to strike the most demanding targets if required for our security," Young said in his memo to Congress.
Lockheed appears to have re-established JASSM's credibility, both financially and technically, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst and executive with the Lexington Institute, a think tank based in Virginia.
"There was always a valid military requirement," he said. "But what was in doubt was Lockheed's ability to develop the weapon system within an acceptable budget. Now the government has said that can be done."
But some industry analysts were not ready to give it the all-clear sign.
Questions remain about how reliable the system is -- especially its anti-jamming Global Positioning System guidance technology, said John Pike, founder of Globalsecurity.org, a defense research and consulting firm in Washington.
"That is not a value judgment; it's a matter of the facts," he said. "The GPS keeps dropping out on them, and they are puzzled by that. As far as I can tell, they are just beginning their reliability test program and there's still a long way to go."
If it persists, the problem "could still blow JASSM out of the water," Pike said. "At some point, the Air Force would have to decide what's the point of spending all this money on it, if it won't work."
Information from The Associated Press also was used in this report.
© Copyright 2008, Orlando Sentinel
