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US Air Force expects to develop counter-electronics missile by 2016.
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World
Aviation Defense & Security News - United States |
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| US Air Force expects to develop counter-electronics missile by 2016 | |||
US
Air Force Research Laboratory recently announced its intention to develop
and test new missile technology during next years. Developed over the
past half decade under a program called Counter-electronics High-powered
Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the technology for a steerable
counter-electronics weapon will be “available” in 2016, said
Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello, who commands the Air Force Research Laboratory
(AFRL). |
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 Future high-power microwave package will be mounted onboard an AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile |
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“It can target electronics well enough to fly over a city and shut down electronics in a single building,” Masiello said Tuesday at the Air Force Association’s annual conference here. Tests over the past few years have proved the concept; now the AFRL is working to get the technology into a test missile. By 2016, Masiello said, the lab plans to design, develop and test a multishot, multitarget, high-power microwave package aboard an AGM-86 conventional air-launched cruise missile. Beyond that, Masiello said, AFRL’s roadmap for high-power microwave (HPM) weapons calls for integrating the technology onto “maybe, a JASSM-ER-type weapon” in the mid-2020s and aboard “small reusable platforms” such as the F-35 or advanced UAVs by the end of the decade. "It’s unclear whether such weapons will actually enter production; there’s no program of record yet" he said. |
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