Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (JASSM)

JASSM is a ’military-off-the-shelf’ long range guided weapon consisting of a 453 kilograms (1000 pounds) multi-role conventional warhead. The weapon is designed to attack high-value, heavily defended targets such as hardened bunkers, area targets or pinpoint objectives such as radar and communications sites. Integration onto Australia’s F/A-18 A/B Hornet was completed in 2010 and confirmed during a successful firing of an inert warhead JASSM from a RAAF F/A-18A aircraft at the US Navy’s China Lake test range in December 2010. Further operational test and evaluation firings of two missiles with high explosive warheads from the F/A-18A were successfully conducted in September 2011 at the Woomera Test Range, South Australia. This activity used Australian procedures and support personnel and provided an end-to-end assessment of Australia’s ability to independently employ the JASSM weapon system. Fleet Service Release for the JASSM capability onto F/A-18A/B ’Classic’ Hornet aircraft was completed in November 2011.