Lockheed Martin Contracted to Produce Early Operational Capability Precision Strike Artillery Missiles

The U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed Martin $158 million to produce additional Early Operational Capability (EOC) Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM).

This is the second production contract received to date and follows a successful Manufacturing Readiness Assessment milestone visit with the Army.

The U.S. Army awarded the first EOC production and Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contracts in September 2021.

Lockheed Martin is currently building PrSMs to fulfill the Army’s initial production contract and additional rounds that will be used in upcoming system qualification tests. EMD will result in a fully qualified system and is the last phase of the development program before a full-rate production decision will be made in 2025.

The next set of flight tests will begin in 2023. These tests follow a record-setting flight surpassing 499 km last year at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

America withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that prevented the development of missiles with ranges between 499 -5,000 km in 2019.

The new PrSM surface-to-surface weapon system will deliver enhanced capabilities to attack, neutralize, suppress and destroy targets using missile-delivered indirect fires out to more than 499km.

PrSM missile contains an insensitive munition (IM) propulsion system and IM energetic payload capable of defeating the PrSM target set. It also features an open systems architecture design for maximum affordability and flexibility, is modular for future growth and HIMARS and M270 compatible.

In October 2021, Lockheed Martin said the PrSM completed its longest flight to date, without disclosing the distance it travelled during the test. The goal flight test was reportedly to see how far the PrSM can travel beyond its previous set requirement of 499km.