AGM-158 JASSM

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US Air Force Details JASSM Improvements
[edefenceonline.com]

Few Major Points are

>>> At 14 ft. long and 2,250 lbs., the JASSM is an autonomous, conventional munition with a standoff range of more than 200 nautical miles. It is designed to defeat heavily defended, high-priority enemy targets deep behind enemy lines.

>>>The JASSM can be released in virtually any type of weather and uses its inertial-navigation system and GPS to find its intended target and then its infrared seeker for pinpoint accuracy just before impact. Once in the air, the stealthy cruise missile can reach high subsonic speeds at Mach 0.85. It is also equipped with an anti-jammer that keeps the enemy in its crosshairs regardless of their technology or capabilities.

>>>The newly christened JASSM program office was charged with not only making a high-survivability standoff weapon capable of attacking various types of targets, but also one made with speed and affordability in the acquisition world.

>>>While the JASSM has proven itself, the LRMSG has plans to make it even more lethal. The second phase of the program is to make an extended-range (ER) version of the weapon. The JASSM-ER will increase the standoff capability to more than 500 nautical miles. The weapon, which looks exactly the same as the original from the outside, has a new engine and can carry more fuel. It will first be integrated on the B-1B and will be ready for flight-testing later this spring.

>>>"A JASSM-ER will have the same lethality and stealth as a JASSM, but it will deliver that knock-out punch from more than twice as far away," said Lt. Col. Stephen Davis, JASSM Block 2 squadron commander. "In the simplest terms, this means some child's mom or dad won't have to fly their B-1 through enemy threats to strike many deeply placed targets."

>>>The LRMSG is also adding a weapons datalink that will enable key command-and-control elements to communicate with the weapon after it's already in flight. "The datalink will plug the weapon right into the warfighting network," said Michele Brazel, LRMSG deputy director. "They'll be able to track what each missile is doing in flight, retarget it in flight if need be, and then get a good indication of whether or not it destroyed its target."

>>>The JASSM is also scheduled to be one of the first weapons to be Universal Armament Interface compliant. UAI is a joint initiative that will allow the Air Force to incorporate new precision-guided munitions onto its aircraft without requiring major changes to each aircraft's software. New development activity is also planned to enable the JASSM to enhance its maritime engagement capability and become the air-launched weapon of choice, not only for highly defended fixed and relocatable land targets but moving maritime targets as well.

>>>"The United States desperately needed a first-day-of-the-war stealthy cruise missile that could go in and take out those threats that put our manned platforms at risk,"Gerry Freisthler, director of the Air Armament Center’s engineering- and acquisition-excellence directorate. "We needed something to go in and take on those double digit [surface-to-air missiles] that may be able to put our aircraft and aircrews at risk, and that's how JASSM came about.

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Lockheed Expands Facility for JASSM, Other Cruise Missiles

8/17/2015

​A new annex for the production of cruise missiles has opened at Lockheed Martin's Pike County Operations facility in Troy, Ala., according to a company press release. Lockheed Martin makes the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) at the Alabama facility, and spent $16.8 million to build the annex. In 2014, the company said the expansion—which increased the size of the facility by 70 percent—was a response to growing demand for cruise missiles, both at home and abroad (Poland is purchasing JASSMs to equip on its F-16 fleet). About 370 people work at the Troy facility, and 150 directly support the JASSM program or the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) program. Lockheed Martin produces about 7,000 missiles each year in Troy, according to Business Alabama. The JASSM, one of USAF's baseline conventional standoff weapons, is integrated on the B-1B, B-2, B-52, F-16, and F-15E and its extended range variant was approved for initial operations on USAF's B-1B fleet in December 2014.
 
JASSM Eyed For Multiple New Modes

9/17/2015

—John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin sees the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile vehicle as a stealthy “truck,” delivering a variety of effects—including non-kinetic ones—in addition to its primary mission as a unitary warhead weapon, company strike systems director R. Alan Jackson said in an interview with Air Force Magazine. Speaking at ASC15, Jackson said the basic JASSM has already evolved into the extended-range variant (JASSM-ER), and into the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), but its combination of stealth, range, and internal volume could make it easily adaptable to other roles. It could function as a dispenser, Jackson said, releasing “individually targeted submunitions” similar to Lockheed’s Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS) mini-unmanned aerial vehicle. Lockheed also is in talks with the AIr Force about the JASSM-ER serving as an electromagnetic kill vehicle following up Air Force Research Laboratory’s success with the CHAMP high-powered microwave vehicle, which was hosted on an AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile. The missile may even be able to generate enough onboard power to deliver disabling laser effects. (Read the full report.)
 
What's powering JASSM? Is it the F107?
I don't think the engine's designed to deliver any amount of useful power - maybe one or two kilowatts for air vehicle systems, but that's it.
 
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
 
Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
That's correct. The LRASM is very similar to the JAASM (AGM-158A) and JASM-ER (AGM-158B). -SP
 
Steve Pace said:
Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
That's correct. The LRASM is very similar to the JAASM (AGM-58A) and JASM-ER (AGM-58B). -SP

Except you didn't say "LRASM". Was wondering what this 3rd variant of "JASSM" was.

Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.

Not surprising other than I didn't think LRASM was considered mature enough to get an official designation. It's still a DARPA program after all.
 
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
That's correct. The LRASM is very similar to the JAASM (AGM-58A) and JASM-ER (AGM-58B). -SP

Except you didn't say "LRASM". Was wondering what this 3rd variant of "JASSM" was.
Excusemwaaaaah... I don't claim to be perfect. -SP
 
Steve Pace said:
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
That's correct. The LRASM is very similar to the JAASM (AGM-58A) and JASM-ER (AGM-58B). -SP

Except you didn't say "LRASM". Was wondering what this 3rd variant of "JASSM" was.
Excusemwaaaaah... I don't claim to be perfect. -SP

Yeah, it was probably nit-picking. (I was pretty sure what you meant but you never know. Maybe it was some other variant revealed or something.)
 
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
Moose said:
All the JASSM variants are AGM-158. The C model is the LRASM.
That's correct. The LRASM is very similar to the JAASM (AGM-58A) and JASM-ER (AGM-58B). -SP

Except you didn't say "LRASM". Was wondering what this 3rd variant of "JASSM" was.
Excusemwaaaaah... I don't claim to be perfect. -SP

Yeah, it was probably nit-picking. (I was pretty sure what you meant but you never know. Maybe it was some other variant revealed or something.)
Here's the release in part from USN site:
Contacted by Navy Recognition, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said "we learned over the weekend that LRASM's official designation will be AGM-158C". AGM-158C is the designation for the air-launched LRASM missile only. There is no surface-launch LRASM program of record yet. The Department of the Navy, Naval Air Warfare Center, gave the official designation.
 
http://www.special-ops.org/19907/us-air-force-drops-vicious-next-gen-smart-missile-from-b-52-bomber/
 
"Vicious"? I wonder if JASSM sadistically toys with its target before exploding? Maybe the shrapnel is formed to mimic the jaws of pitbulls. Some editor had to approve that byline.
 
https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/defence-notes/usaf-gets-2000th-jassm/

Keep a few for the SCS ;D
 
Lockheed considers modifying JASSM to carry small munitions, UAS

Lockheed Martin is drawing up ideas for ways to turn its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile into a delivery system for smaller munitions and potentially small unmanned aerial systems, a configuration that could be immediately available with federal funding, a company official told Inside the Air Force this week.
 
I would have thought that Lockheed would have designed and built a special variant of JASSM to carry small munitions instead of modifying the existing missile. :-\
 
FighterJock said:
I would have thought that Lockheed would have designed and built a special variant of JASSM to carry small munitions instead of modifying the existing missile. :-\

Isn't the way you get a "special variant" is to modify the existing missile? ???
 
I meant to say that Lockheed could design a new missile with the range of JASSM but carrying small munitions instead of a penetrating conventional warhead.
 
FighterJock said:
I meant to say that Lockheed could design a new missile with the range of JASSM but carrying small munitions instead of a penetrating conventional warhead.

They could, but why bother? JASSM seems to have been designed as basically a "bus" anyway, so switching out a new payload module should be pretty straightforward. Payloads of submunitions and even small air vehicles (such as P-LOCAAS) have been studied since the beginning of the JASSM program.
 
TomS said:
FighterJock said:
I meant to say that Lockheed could design a new missile with the range of JASSM but carrying small munitions instead of a penetrating conventional warhead.

They could, but why bother? JASSM seems to have been designed as basically a "bus" anyway, so switching out a new payload module should be pretty straightforward. Payloads of submunitions and even small air vehicles (such as P-LOCAAS) have been studied since the beginning of the JASSM program.

The history of the contemporary (European) Apache/ Scalp/ Storm Shadow family of cruise missiles is illuminating; it started out with submunitions & single unitary warhead versions but the latter was the one actually bought in any numbers. These type of cruise missiles are expensive and are generally restricted to use against key targets which are typically hardened and better defended. The types of targets you would use Submunitions on tend not to be as critical or as well defended and tend not to be seen to justify the cost.
Hence the use of the likes of the cheaper unpowered shorter range JSOW rather than the JASSM for delivery of submunitions up to this point.
Against more sophisticated defences I could see a possible role for a submunitions JASSM but it may be a small niche with very limited production.
 
On further reflection, I suspect they see this JASSM variant being a penetrating/loitering delivery platform for smaller smart weapons (like Shadow Hawk, LM's answer to Griffin and Viper Strike) rather than simply scattering dumb submunitions (or even semi-smart ones like SFW).
 
Lockheed has also been looking at accommodating smaller, lighter unitary warheads as a poor man's range boost.
 
New wing design adds range to JASSM-ER

http://www.janes.com/article/72761/new-wing-design-adds-range-to-jassm-er
 
^
“We completed sub-scale wind tunnel testing of the new wing at the NASA Ames Research Centre, California facility in late 2016,” said Denney. ”We will be going into a full-scale wind tunnel test in early 2018; within a year or so after that we will be conducting several flight tests with the US Air Force. The [launch] platform for JASSM-ER with the redesigned wing has not been fully identified yet, but I suspect it will be the B-1B [Lancer strategic bomber]. Typically, we use the B-1B to introduce new capabilities into JASSM because we have the most flight experience on the B-1B.”
 
http://aviationweek.com/technology/us-air-force-jassm-er-rolling-out-new-fighters-bombers
 
Flyaway said:
New wing design adds range to JASSM-ER

http://www.janes.com/article/72761/new-wing-design-adds-range-to-jassm-er

"Jason Denney, Programme Director for Long Range Strike Systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control told Jane’s that the new wing design will deliver a “significant range increase” for the JASSM-ER. Denney was not cleared to disclose specifics with regard to range augmentation, or the design, dimensions and weight of the new wing, noting only that it leverages laminar flow technologies"

Laminar flow on a substantially swept wing? sounds unlikely.
Now, if they can unsweep the thing a little bit, and keep an acceptable stability margin, i could see that. Advantage of unsweeping would also be to gain wingspan and reduce induced drag, although then you'd want to cruise slower to fly in the drag bucket.
 
550 per year represents an averaged output of two very sophisticated missiles per (open) day!
...
Let says the equivalent tonnage in sunk ships of one fregate per 24h? But you'll say that a peer enemy won't stop fighting during the weekends.
 
So the body of the missile is completely the same? There's no mention of a new engine or different internal structure. No mention of added fuel. Only different wing design. And yet the range grows from 500-something nm to 1000 nm??? How does that work? And that's on top of the initial range increase from 300-something nm to 500-something nm. All from the same design, all within some 25 years. I do get a feeling there's a bunch of details about that new JASSM variant that were omitted.
 
Question that came up in the CSIS Taiwan study: does AGM-158B have any capability against moving ships? I was inclined to say "no", but they seem to assign it some kind of conditional ability to do so. IMO, their reasoning is extremely thin:

"The variables of study must therefore both be uncertain and likely to have a high impact on the outcome. For example, in this project it became clear that the effectiveness of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) against moving ships was a critical factor in the outcome of the game after playing several iterations. A close review of the literature showed that this effectiveness was unclear. The project team therefore decided that the effectiveness of the JASSM was an important variable to test."

"Publicly available information about the capabilities of the JASSM-ER is unclear. There are hints that
it could have some anti-ship capability. In its FY 2022 budget request, the Navy introduced the AGM158B JASSM-ER to “enhance long range strike and existing OASuW [offensive anti-surface warfare] capability.”226 The document suggests that it will be possible to “convert JASSM-ER software to a C++ software baseline, similar to LRASM, and focus on combining JASSM-ER strike capability and LRASM
OASuW capability into a merged Navy JASSM baseline. Future efforts will expand both Navy strike and OASuW capabilities within Navy JASSM.”227 The Air Force also continues to upgrade variants of the JASSM-ER. Depending on the adjustments required to make the missile capable of anti-ship operations, it is possible that the capability could be retrofitted onto existing systems. "

 
If JASSM could hit moving ships they wouldn't need LRASM. Also, I thought LRASM got a bunch of ESM gear/antenna to help it avoid defenses.
 
If JASSM could hit moving ships they wouldn't need LRASM. Also, I thought LRASM got a bunch of ESM gear/antenna to help it avoid defenses.

I assume their argument is that the IIR seeker can be used to acquire a ship type target the same as a building or land target, so long as it’s close enough and the target drift and angle viewpoint changes don’t throw the seeker off. I don’t know how reasonable of an assumption that is - does LRASM use the same IIR seeker as the rest of JASSM family or is it customized?

LRASM still has the advantage of passive RF target detection, identification, and geo location/guidance. The same ability likely allows it to avoid air defense threats, assuming the threat emitter isn’t on its target list. If the AGM-158B seeker could be programmed to engage a ship target, then the only problem would be accurately placing the targets inside its seeker envelope. So precise location, course, and speed of target are necessary, plus large course changes by the target at high speed during flight time might evade. LRASM wouldn’t have those limitations against an emitting target that it was capable of receiving (no idea what frequency range or other limitations of LRASMs RF receivers might be).

AGM-158B as a ship killer would still be extremely significant given the inventory and number of launch platforms. It would also explain the incredibly small LRASM buys by both services.
 
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Circling back to this, it looks like JASSM was going to have a datalink going back quite some time that would allow for retargeting or target updates in flight. This article explicitly states that maritime targets were a goal:

"The datalink flight trials are a key element of plans to field a maritime-mode version of JASSM in 2010-11. Lockheed and the US Air Force are discussing the formal launch of a JASSM maritime interdiction advanced concept technology demonstration to start in 2007, with full-scale development activities to follow from late 2008. Lockheed says it demonstrated an initial maritime strike capability last April using a Block II Lot 3 missile with GPS guidance to attack a barge anchored in the Gulf of Mexico."


It isn't clear if the L3 datalink was added to AGM-158B though.

EDIT: it appears that the datalink is one way only back to the firing platform for BDA, but that the B2/D variants will be retargetable in flight:

"The current weapons sport a one-way datalink, but it seems like the AGM-158B-2 will feature the updated two-way WDL of the AGM-158D JASSM-ER (the missile formerly known as JASSM-XR)."



What it does seem to be able to do is recognize targets from different approach angles, as it apparently stores a 3D model of the target:

"The missile is guided by INS/GPS unit developed for the JDAM and JSOW bombs, and also a IR seeker for terminal guidance. It also incorporates three-dimensional targeting models of the intended targets, of which eight can be stored in each missile."

 
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What I'd like to know is how does the missile control its pitch and roll axes? It clearly has a moveable tail fin yet where you'd expect the elevators to be there are what appear to be fixed tabs.
 
What I'd like to know is how does the missile control its pitch and roll axes? It clearly has a moveable tail fin yet where you'd expect the elevators to be there are what appear to be fixed tabs.

There are ailerons in the wings. I suspect they have pitch authority as well if they are deflected together rather than opposite for roll.
 
What I'd like to know is how does the missile control its pitch and roll axes? It clearly has a moveable tail fin yet where you'd expect the elevators to be there are what appear to be fixed tabs.

There are ailerons in the wings. I suspect they have pitch authority as well if they are deflected together rather than opposite for roll.
Missiles like JASSM, Regulus, Snark, etc have always baffled me. Presumably they act similar to delta-wings but with a different planform?
 

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