The replacement for the United States Department of Defense‘s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is coming into greater focus with the fitting named Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).
The first batch of short-range ballistic missiles was delivered to the U.S. Army in December 2023. On Monday, the service awarded aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin a nearly $5 billion indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract.
According to the company, the “IDIQ contract enables the U.S. Army to efficiently order PrSM units, providing a significant increase in production capacity to meet growing demand.”
The exact number that will be produced for the U.S. military and any delivery schedule haven‘t been disclosed. In addition to this newest contract, Lockheed Martin makes the PrSM for the United States Marine Corps and the Australian military.
The PrSM Must Be a Hit for Lockheed Martin
The award for producing the missile system comes just weeks after the company, the largest defense contractor in the world, lost out on the United States Air Force‘s likely highly lucrative contract to produce the sixth-generation manned aircraft that is the centerpiece of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
In addition, last month, Lockheed Martin was eliminated from the U.S. Navy‘s sixth-gen fighter program, the F/A-XX. Boeing, which won the NGAD contract to produce the F-47, and Northrop Grumman are now the competitors, with the Navy likely to decide soon.
The PrSM: An In-Depth Analysis
The PrSM can be fired from the U.S. Army‘s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), the light multiple rocket launcher that Lockheed developed in the 1990s. As the successor to the MGM-140 ATACMS, the PrSM boasts a range of 310 miles or more, enhanced accuracy with GPS and anti-jamming capabilities, and the ability to carry more missiles per pod.
The PrSM can also be employed with the M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). Future increments of the PrSM will prioritize enhancements in range and lethality and offer the ability to engage time-sensitive, moving, hardened, and fleeting targets. The defense contractor has employed “digital tools,” including augmented reality (AR), as well as its proprietary “ARISE advanced modeling and simulation,” coupled with data analytics and a software factory, to improve the PrSM’s capabilities.
“Lockheed Martin is committed to delivering this deterrent capability in support of the Army‘s vision for a lethal and resilient force,” states Carolyn Orzechowski, vice president of Precision Fires Launchers and Missiles at Lockheed Martin.
“Our team remains focused on advancing the production at speed and scale, ensuring the warfighter receives this critical capability to maintain peace through strength.”
Army Recognition reported that the PrSM‘s latest test was carried out at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on March 24. The report explained, “The test marked another milestone in the missile‘s development, demonstrating its precision strike performance and reinforcing its role in enhancing U.S. Army air dominance.”
The U.S. Army had called for an enhanced version of the weapon, including an Increment 2 with a multimode seeker, known as the Land-Based Anti-Ship Missile (LBASM) seeker, and a PrSM Inc 3, which would seek to add enhanced lethality payloads.
The service had further tapped Lockheed Martin, along with Raytheon Technologies-Northrop Grumman, to develop a competing PrSM Inc 4 design that could fly more than 1,000 kilometers, doubling the range of the current version.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image: Shutterstock/ Mike Mareen.
