The Norwegian Government has submitted a bill to Parliament seeking approval for further development of the joint strike missile (JSM), which will see its integration with the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The bill, if approved, will allow Kongsberg Gruppen to complete the product in 2017.
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Kongsberg Defence Systems president Harald Ånnestad said they are pleased that the government has presented its bill as indicated in the Revised National Budget on 14 May.
"A parliament approval means completion of the JSM and preparing the product for the market," Ånnestad said.
Developed in collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry of Defence (MoD), JSM is a long-range anti-surface missile primarily designed to be integrated within the F-35’s internal weapons bay, enabling engagement of both land and naval objects protected by advanced defence systems.
Specifically engineered for the internal carriage on the F-35A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) and F-35 carrier variant (CV), the missile features an advanced engagement planning, a navigation system and an automated target recognition with imaging target seeker for discrimination between red, white and blue ships.
According to Kongsberg, the full-scale production of JSM will create more than 450 jobs in their company and will provide assignments for more than 100 Norwegian subcontractors for decades.
Image: A JSM test missile mounted underneath the F-35 aircraft at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Fort Worth, Texas, US. Photo: courtesy of Lockheed Martin.
