DoD approves joint air-to-surface missile

[unhappycamper]

DoD approves joint air-to-surface missile
By Gayle S. Putrich - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 2, 2008 17:30:55 EDT

The U.S. Defense Department has given the go-ahead to the Air Force’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), officials announced May 2, after more than a year of deliberating and rehabilitating the program with contractor Lockheed Martin.

The chief weapon buyer for the Pentagon, John Young, certified that required conditions had been met for the now-$6.1 billion cruise missile program.

In June, the Air Force plans to award the Lot 7 contract for about 115 JASSM missiles, and development-and-testing activities for the extended-range version are scheduled to resume, according to a statement from the air service.

The Pentagon had long deferred a decision on JASSM, a first for a major program in breach of the Nunn-McCurdy statute, after the program tripped the federal cost inflation caps for a second time last April. Though a $68 million plan to kick the troubled program back into shape was approved by outgoing Pentagon acquisition executive Ken Krieg last July, whether the stealthy air-to-ground missile could get back on track and be recertified remained in question. The Air Force even went so far as to issue a request for information on alternatives for JASSM last fall.

Though no new funds could be allocated without the program being recertified, already-appropriated funds were not frozen. JASSM got $156.5 million in the 2007 budget and another $160 million in fiscal 2008. The president’s fiscal 2009 budget proposal includes $240.3 million for the missile program. The $68 million cost of rehabbing the program was split between the Lockheed and the Air Force.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/05/dfn_050208_jassm/



uhc comment: Meet the $700,000 JASSM:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASSM