Coming off of her less-than-enthusiastic comments last month on the program’s performance, the Air Force’s top civilian acquisition official yesterday slammed Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface-Standoff Missile program—saying recent test failures may prevent its certification. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday, Sue Payton confirmed the Air Force and Pentagon leadership were deciding whether or not to keep the program over the next month. Problems in the navigation system and reliability issues have led the Air Force to consider other options, according to Payton.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. still “believes” in his mantra of “Accelerate Change or Lose”—and indicated the doctrinal changes it produced when he was Air Force Chief of Staff played a role in the service’s recent response to Iran’s aerial assault on Israel, he…