TUCSON, Ariz., 23 Feb. 2006. The U.S. Department of Defense in November presented Raytheon Company's Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) program with the David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award. The Packard award is given to civilian and military organizations that have made highly significant contributions or demonstrated exemplary innovations and best practices in the defense acquisition process.
In the JSOW Block II program, based at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz., the company and customer work closely together to reduce unit costs, while expanding capabilities of the JSOW family of standoff unpowered air-to-ground weapons.
Raytheon is under contract with U.S. Naval Air Systems Command and expects to complete development of the JSOW Block II in 2006.
Block II is planned to reduce JSOW unit cost by 25 percent or more, saving the Navy $133.5 million in the future year's defense program and an additional $421 million over the life of the program. Costs are cut by reducing the parts count and improving the manufacturing process.
"We are saving dollars that are immediately reinvested back in the naval aviation enterprise to improve inventory and capability for the warfighter,"
says Capt. Dave Dunaway, program manager of the Navy's Precision Strike Weapons office.
Beginning in fiscal year 2006, JSOW precision glide weapons will be manufactured in the Block II configuration. Block II will maintain all standoff and survivability capability of the current JSOW and will include an improved anti-jam Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The Raptor GPS system is an advanced navigator developed by Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems and is planned for use in other Raytheon products.
Development of a new payload option for the JSOW-A should be complete in 2006. This new version will use a unitary 500-pound BLU-111 (MK-82) warhead and is designated the AGM-154A-1. This unitary variant will eliminate the unexploded ordnance concerns of cluster munitions while maintaining or increasing effectiveness against a broad target set. It is primarily intended for the international market.
"We are also developing JSOW moving target capability for land and sea targets," says Ron Shields, Raytheon's JSOW program director.
