Air Force speeds up LRSO cruise missile development schedule

摘要

The Air Force has received Raytheon's proposal for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon and will seek the Defense Acquisition Board's approval to begin developing the multibillion-dollar, nuclear-armed cruise missile next May, about nine months ahead of schedule. The pending milestone B authorization to start LRSO's engineering and manufacturing development phase will officially make the weapon a program of record in the Air Force's budget. The service first conducted an analysis of alternatives to replace the aging Air-launched Cruise Missile eight years ago and faced resistance from some Democratic lawmakers and former Defense Department officials who sought to cancel LRSO early in the acquisition process during the Obama administration. Now, the controversial program is nearing the end of its technology-maturation and risk-reduction phase --months after the Air Force unexpectedly revealed it was sole-sourcing the prime contractor. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin had both been designing weapon solutions for nearly three years and had another 22 months left in their contracts when the Air Force announced in April that it had chosen Raytheon and would stop funding Lockheed.