Lockheed Martin Tests New Scalable Warhead on GMLRS-Plus Rocket

DALLAS, Novem­ber 30th, 2011 — Lock­heed Mar­tin [NYSE: LMT] today test­ed a new Guid­ed Mul­ti­ple Launch Rock­et Sys­tem-Plus (GMLRS+) ‘scal­able effects’ war­head, which enables users to select the range of the warhead’s det­o­na­tion pow­er depend­ing on the target.

“The ‘scal­able effects’ war­head was set to low-yield pri­or to the flight and scored a direct hit on the tar­get,” said Scott Arnold, vice pres­i­dent of pre­ci­sion fires in Lock­heed Martin’s Mis­siles and Fire Con­trol busi­ness. “The per­for­mance of both the GMLRS+ rock­et and the scal­able effects war­head were out­stand­ing, val­i­dat­ing our con­tin­ued invest­ment in evolv­ing the proven GMLRS weapon sys­tem to address cur­rent and future threats.”

This test at White Sands Mis­sile Range, N.M., was the sec­ond of two GMLRS+ launch­es sched­uled for 2011. In ear­ly August, a GMLRS+ round suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a 120-kilo­me­ter mis­sion, an improve­ment in range of approx­i­mate­ly 50 kilo­me­ters over the cur­rent GMLRS round. Both tests were inter­nal­ly fund­ed by Lock­heed Mar­tin and Aero­jet and were sup­port­ed by the U.S. Army’s Pre­ci­sion Fires Pro­gram Office.

Aero­jet, a world-rec­og­nized pro­duc­er of mis­sile and space propul­sion sys­tems and defense arma­ments, was select­ed for this test phase as the GMLRS+ war­head sup­pli­er after an eval­u­a­tion and selec­tion process.

GMLRS+ is a Lock­heed Mar­tin inter­nal research and devel­op­ment pro­gram to upgrade the com­bat-proven GMLRS Uni­tary sys­tem, and inte­grate new capa­bil­i­ties into the exist­ing GMLRS guidance/navigation pack­age and air­frame. It will accom­mo­date var­i­ous war­heads, and will oper­ate seam­less­ly with­in the cur­rent High Mobil­i­ty Artillery Rock­et Sys­tem (HIMARS) and MLRS M270A1 launch­er force struc­ture. Lock­heed Mar­tin is the prime con­trac­tor on the GMLRS program.

Head­quar­tered in Bethes­da, Md., Lock­heed Mar­tin is a glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny that employs about 126,000 peo­ple world­wide and is prin­ci­pal­ly engaged in the research, design, devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, inte­gra­tion and sus­tain­ment of advanced tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems, prod­ucts and ser­vices. The Corporation’s 2010 sales from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions were $45.8 billion.

Craig Van­beb­ber, (972) 603‑1615
email craig.vanbebber@lmco.com