AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 35
Tony Osborne London
Old Missile,
New Tricks
Raytheon is funding a seeker
upgrade to the Tomahawk missile
to extend its life into the 2030s
T
hirty years since the first itera-
tions entered service, the Toma-
hawk cruise missile remains one
of the key elements in the U.S. Navy’s
long-range attack capability.
Nearly 50 of the missiles were re-
cently fired against Islamic State mili-
tants and other terror groups during
the early airstrikes in Syria as part of
what is now known as Operation In-
herent Resolve, and the weapon has
been used as the opening shot in many
of the major military operations since
Desert Storm in 1991. It is often used
to hit strategically important targets.
But Raytheon wants to further
boost the weapon’s tactical capabili-
ties to ready it for a possible contest
to meet the U.S. Navy’s Ofensive Anti-
Surface Warfare requirement.
The company is spending $40 million
of its own cash to improve the moving
target and discrimination systems on
the Block IV model weapon that en-
tered service with the U.S. Navy in
- In 2008, the U.K. Royal Navy
adopted the torpedo-tube-fired version.
Recent trials vetted a new-design
passive seeker that detects radiation
emitters. This was flown in April on
an adapted T-39 Sabreliner business
jet testbed equipped with the nose of
a Tomahawk fitted to the front of the
aircraft. The passive seeker will give
the weapon electronic support mea-
sures, including listening for particu-
lar radar types and helping to steer
the weapon away from benign civilian
radars that monitor weather.
Next spring, the company will test
a millimeter-wave, active seeker com-
bined with a new high-speed proces-
sor, which will allow the weapon to
image the target to confirm it is the
correct one before entering termi-
nal attack maneuvers. The company
wants to achieve a technology readi-
ness level of 6 on the seeker before
captive-carry flights next summer.
“Our strategy was to have one mis-
sile doing all missions, explained Roy
Donelson, program director for Tom-
ahawk at Raytheon, speaking at the
London Science Museum on Oct. 27.
“Tomahawk is already capable of
dealing with mobile and fixed targets
[and now] we can provide better tar-
get discrimination, better capabil-
ity against moving targets with the
seeker.”
Currently, the only way for Toma-
hawk to hit mobile targets is by using
the Block IV’s ability to deliver new
GPS coordinates of the target to the
weapon through its data link. The
three Cruise Missile Support Activity
sites at Norfolk Virginia, Hawaii and
Northwood, U.K., responsible for plan-
ning Tomahawk missions, are able to
rapidly pass updated target position
information in the final moments—the
end game—of the missile’s flight. This
provides the weapons with the poten-
tial for long-range anti-ship strike, as
well as the ability to handle significant
mobile targets on land.
It has been more than a decade since
the Navy ditched the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile, a version of the weapon
fitted with inertial guidance and the
seeker head from the Boeing Harpoon
anti-ship missile. Raytheon says one
concern with that version was its in-
ability to clearly discriminate between
targets, especially from a long distance.
Donelson believes the weapon could
be ideal for any future long-range anti-
ship requirement because of the new
seeker, but specifications for a poten-
tial Increment II Ofensive Anti-Sur-
face Warfare competition are not yet
available.
The company has also proved that
the weapon could perform battle-dam-
age-assessment missions by relaying
images via a data link as it passes over
previously attacked targets on the way
to its own, and it has also completed
a series of high- and medium-altitude
flights. The ability to take out con-
crete-reinforced structures may also
be introduced through the use of the
Joint Multiple Efects Warhead System
(JMEWS), originally tested in 2010. Do-
nelson says an engineering, manufac-
turing, and development contract for
JMEWS could emerge in 2016.
The company hopes the Navy will
keep the weapon in production until
at least 2019 when early batches of
the Block IV missile will need to be
recertified and upgraded for another
15 years of life. The fiscal 2015 budget
calls for production of around 100
missiles, but $82 million more maybe
added to allow for another 96 missiles
to be purchased. cThirty years since its introduction,
the Tomahawk is still key
to providing the opening shots
in major air campaigns.U.S. NAVY圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀
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