LRASM Scores in Second Shot

A Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, scored a direct hit on a mobile ship target after launching from a B-1B bomber earlier this week, announced Lockheed Martin Thursday. It was the second of two air-launched successes for the missile so far. The LRASM is a maritime warfare variant of the stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), with additional search and homing sensors. The target was representative of a moving ship. The B-1B provided targeting updates to the missile in-flight through data links; the LRASM then switched to autonomous guidance, found and verified the target, and struck it at the planned impact point. The test was a joint undertaking of DARPA and the Office of Naval Research, under a contract awarded in 2009 to demonstrate an off-the-shelf development of a weapon to attack sea-based threats at long range. The LRASM can be air-launched or fired from a shipborne vertical launch system, and has an “enhanced digital anti-jam global positioning system” capability “to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships,” Lockheed Martin said in a release. The B-1B used in the test is attached to the Air Force’s 337th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Dyess AFB, Texas.