REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – Tactical missile designers at Lockheed Martin Corp. will build launchers for next-generation surface-to-surface rockets designed to destroy enemy targets as far away as 300 miles under terms of a $616 million three-year order announced on Friday.
Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., are asking the Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control segment in Grand Prairie, Texas, for full-rate production of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers.
These launchers will fire the Army's future long-range Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) -- a surface-to-surface, all weather, precision-strike guided missile fired from the M270A1 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the M142 HIMARS. PrSM should enter service in 2023.
The PrSM multimode seeker homes-in on an enemy target's radar or radio communications emissions to give the weapon passive stealth capability. It also uses an imaging infrared sensor for terminal guidance, and takes guidance from Global Position System (GPS) and inertial measurement sensors.
The PrSM precision munitions are to replace non-insensitive and cluster munition versions of the Army MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). It will provide Army and U.S. Marine Corps field artillery units with long range and deep strike capability. The PrSM will destroy, neutralize, or suppress targets at ranges from 43 to 250 miles using indirect precision fires.
The baseline missile will be able to engage a wide variety of targets at ranges as long as 310 miles. It will emphasize imprecisely located area and point targets. Primary emphasis for follow-on upgrades will be on increased range, lethality, and ability to attack time-sensitive, moving, hardened, and fleeting targets.
By 2025 the Army will be able to use the long-range PrSM to attack and destroy moving enemy ships operating offshore at ranges out to about 310 miles. While the weapon primarily has surface-to-surface applications for use against enemy air defenses, troop fortifications, and armored vehicle columns, the PrSM is being configured with an advanced targeting multi-mode seeker to include maritime strike.
Related: Army eyes enabling technologies for MLRS long-range tactical missiles
The new targeting seeker has completed a captive carry test wherein it flew aboard an aircraft against representative targets in preparation for further testing and ultimate deployment.
On this order Lockheed Martin will do the work in Grand Prairie and Dallas, Texas; Archibald and York, Pa.; Camden, Ark.; Palm Bay, Boca Raton, and Clearwater, Fla.; Brownsboro, Ala.; Whippany, N.J.; and Jackson, Miss., and should be finished by May 2026.
For more information contact Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control online at www.lockheedmartin.com, or the Army Contracting Command-Redstone at acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-rsa.
