The Navy announced July 2 that it successfully conducted four Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) guided flight tests at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
All four missions accurately guided the projectile to the target approximately 45 nautical miles from the launch site. These flights, conducted in June, demonstrated; successful gun launch, GPS acquisition, navigation and guidance, height of burst fuzzing, accuracy and warhead function.
“This test not only successfully demonstrated the LRLAP capability, which is pretty substantial with respect to accuracy, but also built on the successes of previous tests toward the demonstration of a reliable gun-launch land attack projectile,” said Capt. Mike Ladner, Navy Surface Ship Weapons, major program manager, Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS).
LRLAP is a 155mm rocket-assisted guided projectile designed to support land-attack and naval surface fire support operations in conjunction with the Advanced Gun System (AGS) on DDG 1000-class destroyers. Live-fire testing is part of land-based flight qualification during the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase.
“We couldn’t have asked for a more successful day,” said Ladner. “This is going to be a great capability for the fleet. We’re looking forward to completing the qualification and working to integrate this capability aboard the DDG 1000.”
PEO IWS is an affiliated Program Executive Office of the Naval Sea Systems Command, which manages surface ship and submarine combat technologies and systems, and coordinates Navy Open Architecture across ship platforms.
[mappress] Press Release, July 4, 2013