27 Apr 10. Lockheed Martin marked the delivery of the 10,000th Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rocket during a ceremony held at its Camden, AR, facility today. GMLRS is an all-weather, precision strike, artillery rocket system that achieves greater range and precision accuracy requiring fewer rockets to defeat targets and limiting collateral damage.
“The delivery of the 10,000th GMLRS marks a significant milestone in the program,” said Col. David J. Rice, U.S. Army program manager for Precision Fires, Rocket and Missile Systems. “This is a superior system that provides responsive, precision fires enabled by unsurpassed system reliability and maintainability. The team, led by Lockheed Martin, consisting of both government and industry partners, has worked diligently to ensure mission success through this technology.”
The system is produced at the company’s facilities in Camden, AR, and Dallas, TX.
“The success of this system speaks for the quality work that our team is doing every day,” said Col. Tony Daskevich, Army capability manager for Field Artillery Rocket and Missiles. “We are a constant in this fight, always mission ready and on target. Precision is the name of the game when it comes to our missions, and that is why our soldiers and leaders so appreciate this system.”
GMLRS provides the Joint Warfighter with persistent, responsive, long-range precision strike capability against traditional and hybrid threats. GMLRS’ reliability rate exceeds 98 percent and, to date, more than 1,500 rockets have been successfully fired in combat.

28 Apr 10. Raytheon Company and the Norwegian defense company NAMMO have begun qualifying an alternative rocket motor for the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. The new motor will be interchangeable with the AMRAAM propulsion system and will maintain the same performance as the current rocket engine. “A second source of rocket motors ensures Raytheon will meet its commitment to the U.S. and international warfighter by providing a continual supply of AMRAAMs,” said Harry Schulte, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems Air Warfare Systems product line. “Our partnership with NAMMO leverages Raytheon’s decades of experience teaming with European companies to build and deliver capable, reliable systems. This partnership is another example of close collaboration among allied nations, and it adds value to numerous industries and AMRAAM customers.”The U.S. Air Force, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, Innovation Norway, Raytheon and NAMMO Raufoss AS will share financing for non-recurring costs associated with the qualification program.”NAMMO has a rich history of producing rocket motors for air-to-air missiles and has delivered more than 40,000 rocket motors for the Sidewinder program alone,” said Ola Skrivervik, NAMMO’s senior vice president of business development. “The AMRAAM qualification program is progressing rapidly and with great success. NAMMO is proud to be part of the AMRAAM team because the excellent working relationship brings value to AMRAAM customers and the U.S. and European Economic Area industrial bases.”

27 Apr 10. The U.S. Army Applied Aviation Technology Directorate has awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.5m contract that continues development of the Kinetic Energy Net (KEN) armor design. KEN is a modular composite armor system developed by Lockheed Martin that is lighter than current aircraft armor, but offers comparable protection.
“Kinetic Energy Net is a new direction in armor that doesn’t trade weight for strength,” said Glenn Miller, vice president of Technical Operations and Applied Research at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “Aircrews operate in some of the most exposed places on the battlefield, but due to weight constraints users don’t have as much armor protection as they’d like. We developed KEN armor so it can also be integrated directly into the aircraft structure instead of attaching plates to the fuselage, which ad