The U.S. Navy completed developmental testing (DT) of the Raytheon Joint Standoff Weapon C-1. The conclusion of DT brings U.S. and allied warfighters one step closer to being able to engage moving ships as far as 60 nautical miles (70 statute miles) away with an air-launched weapon.

Developmental testing finished when the JSOW C-1 struck a small, fast-moving ship target during the weapon's second flight test.

"The JSOW C-1 is a network-enabled weapon which will be capable of receiving third party target updates in-flight and strike a precise point on a moving ship using its autonomous terminal seeker," said Cmdr. Samuel Hanaki of the U.S. Navy's Precision Strike Weapons program office.

"In addition to marking the completion of DT, this test keeps the program on track for reaching initial operational capability in 2013."

During the test, which met all objectives, the JSOW C-1 was released from an F/A-18F Super Hornet and guided to a small, fast moving ship target located 25 nautical miles (approximately 29 statute miles) from the launch point. The JSOW C-1 provided weapon in-flight track and bomb hit indication status messages via the Link-16 network.

The weapon also incorporated in-flight target updates provided by a second Super Hornet's Raytheon APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar that was 10 nautical miles behind the Super Hornet that launched the weapon.

"The 280 Raytheon employees in Tucson, Ariz., and hundreds of supplier employees across the U.S. worked hard to make this test a success and demonstrate JSOW C-1's ability to operate on the Link-16 network," said Phyllis McEnroe, JSOW program director for Raytheon Missile Systems.

Joint Standoff Weapon
JSOW is a family of low-cost, air-to-ground weapons that employs an integrated GPS- inertial navigation system and terminal imaging infrared seeker. JSOW C-1 adds moving maritime target capability and the two-way Strike Common Weapon Datalink to the combat-proven weapon.

JSOW C-1 is the world's first networked weapon, and has a range of more than 100 kilometers (more than 60 nautical miles).

The U.S. Navy completed the first free-flight test of JSOW C-1 on July 26, 2011, and the second test on Nov. 30, 2011.

Raytheon is using company funding to develop a powered version of the JSOW that has the potential to fly more than 300 nautical miles.