Ramona Adams
Lockheed Martin has demonstrated a second updated Tactical Missile System during a flight test held at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The company said Monday the modernized TACMS was deployed from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher to engage a target placed approximately 52.8 miles away in an effort to validate the missile’s Proximity Sensor Height of Burst function.
The first updated TACMS was tested in October and five more flight demonstrations are scheduled over the next months as part of Lockheed’s $74 million TACMS modernization contract with the U.S. Army.
Under the contract, Lockheed will disassemble, demilitarize and replace TACMS Block 1 and 1A submunition warheads that do not meet standards of the Convention on Cluster Munitions of 2008 with unitary warheads.
The refurbished missiles are fitted with guidance electronics and a technology designed to destroy area targets without leaving unexploded ordnance, Lockheed noted.
