Lockheed Martin recently completed a successful first flight test of the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) in support of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) program.

In the test over the Sea Range at Point Mugu, Calif., a U.S. Air Force B-1B from the 337th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, released the LRASM. The missile navigated through all planned waypoints, transitioned to autonomous guidance and flew toward the maritime target using inputs from the onboard multimodal sensor. The missile then descended to low altitude for final approach to the target area, positively identified and impacted the target.

"This is a monumental accomplishment for the LRASM program and paves the way for subsequent missile launches," said Mike Fleming, LRASM air launch program manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. "The multi-service and industry team was well-coordinated and operated seamlessly in the execution of this very important test."

LRASM is an autonomous, precision-guided anti-ship standoff missile leveraging the successful Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) heritage, and is designed to meet the needs of U.S. Navy and Air Force warfighters in a robust anti-access/area-denial threat environment.

JASSM-ER, which recently completed its operational test program, provides a significant number of parts and assembly-process synergies with LRASM, which results in cost savings for the U.S. Navy and Air Force (air- and surface-launched) Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare programs.

After a competition in 2009, Lockheed Martin's LRASM was selected to demonstrate air- and surface-launched capability to defeat emerging sea-based threats at significant standoff ranges.

Armed with a proven 1,000-pound penetrator and blast-fragmentation warhead, LRASM employs a multi-mode sensor, weapon data link and an enhanced digital anti-jam global positioning system to detect and destroy specific targets within a group of ships.