Air Force nearly doubles value of Boeing JDAM smart munitions contract; grows to $3.2 billion
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, 1 June 2016. Bomb designers at the Boeing Co. will continue providing satellite guidance systems to convert gravity bombs into smart munitions under terms of a program restructuring that increases Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) work to $3.2 billion.
Officials of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, added $1.5 billion Monday to a contract first awarded in 2014 to the Boeing Defense, Space & Security segment in St. Louis for JDAM tailkits.
JDAM describes a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs into all-weather precision-guided munitions. JDAM tailkits add an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to give bombs a published range of as far as 15 nautical miles.
JDAM-equipped bombs range from 500 to 2,000 pounds by adding a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, a body kit, and a combined inertial guidance system and GPS guidance control unit.
The Air Force nearly doubled the value of the Boeing JDAM contract due to warfighter demand and to replenish depleted inventories. The Air Force on Monday increased the value of Boeing's JDAM tailkit contract from $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion.
Related: Boeing to build laser JDAM smart munitions guidance kits in $357.9 million Navy contract
In addition to GPS and inertial guidance, some JDAM-equipped munitions also use laser guidance. The performance of laser-guided smart munitions sometimes can be hindered by bad weather, smoke, dust, and other obscurants.
Laser-guidance kits sometimes are added to the nose of JDAM-equipped bombs for precision terminal guidance.
Military aircraft that can carry JDAM include the B-1B supersonic bomber; the B-2A stealth bomber; B-52H bomber; F-15E fighter-bomber; F-16C jet fighter, the F/A-18 fighter-bomber; F-22 fighter; F-35 joint strike fighter; A-4 light-attack bomber; AV-8B jump jet; A-10 close air support jet; A-29 Super Tucano; Mitsubishi F-2; Panavia Tornado; Mirage F-1; and Saab JAS 39 Gripen. The MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) also can carry the JDAM.
On this contract modification Boeing will do the work in St. Louis and should be finished by September 2020. For more information contact Boeing Defense, Space & Security online at www.boeing.com/defense, or the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at www.wpafb.af.mil/aflcmc.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
