Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Maryland, was awarded an Other Transaction Authority agreement with a ceiling of $339,318,582 for the Mid-Range Capability. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation, U.S. Army funds in the amount of $57,959,033 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, Alexandria, Virginia, is the contracting activity (W50RAJ-2-19-0001). Through an other transaction authority agreement, Lockheed Martin will take the U.S. Navy’s Raytheon-built SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles to put together a Mid-Range Capability, or MRC, prototype that consists of launchers, missiles and a battery operations center.
A variant of the Tomahawk missile was used in a land-based cruise missile capability test last year. The SM-6 is a long-range, anti-air missile that has a surface mode. This mid-range missile — expected to hit targets at distances beyond 500 kilometers — is to be fielded to an operational battery in fiscal 2023. The U.S. Army was planning to field a mid-range missile capability designed to go after moving targets at land and at sea. The effort is meant to fill a gap in the service’s long-range precision fires portfolio in between the future Precision Strike Missile and hypersonic weapons capabilities.
To meet the demanding timeline, the MRC prototype “will utilize and modify existing hardware and software from the U.S. Army and joint service partners and integrate additional technologies to achieve new operational effects. The U.S. Army arrived at the decision to incorporate the SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles after a “broad review of joint service technologies potentially applicable to MRC. To use the joint service technologies, the U.S. Army “will leverage U.S. Navy contract vehicles for missile procurement in support of the U.S. Army integration other transaction authority agreement.
The capability also allows the Army and joint services to synchronize and leverage modernization efforts and investments across mid-range missile programs in support of multi-domain operations. By 2023, the U.S. Army will have begun delivering a portfolio of strategic, mid-range and short-range fires capabilities that will change the paradigm against advanced adversaries Russia and China. The initial fielding of the Precision Strike Missile, capable of hitting targets out to 499 kilometers (with a likelihood of a greater range), will happen in 2023 as well as a ground-launched hypersonic missile.
