Lockheed Martin Corporation successfully conducted the first Engineering, Manufacturing and Development (EMD) flight of the new Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Alternative Warhead at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Launched from a HIMARS mobile launcher, the GMLRS rocket flew 35 kilometers to the target, where the warhead detonated. This flight followed a successful ground-based test of the Alternative Warhead two weeks earlier. The Alternative Warhead Program (AWP) is part of a U.S. Department of Defense plan to phase out submunitions, and is designed to achieve the same area-effects as the GMLRS submunitions warhead, but without the lingering danger of undetonated explosives. The GMLRS Alternative Warhead is unitary and fits within the existing GMLRS architecture as a replacement for the Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition warhead. The Alternative Warhead is being developed by ATK under subcontract to Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin has completed a program milestone for the integrating system that links the numerous sensors, weapons and systems currently operational in the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System. The Lockheed Martin-led Missile Defense National Team successfully completed the preliminary design review for a major upgrade to the training component of the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system, the hub of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. As the force multiplier for the Ballistic Missile Defense system, the C2BMC system globally and regionally networks, integrates and synchronizes individual missile defense elements, systems and operations to optimize performance. This vital system enables key users at strategic, regional and operational levels to systematically plan ballistic missile defense operations, collectively see the battle develop, and dynamically manage designated networked sensors and weapons. This preliminary design review is a checkpoint to ensure that the program is on track and meeting the requirements for new capabilities being integrated into the existing system. The new capabilities in this review focused on the distributed training system, which will support the existing operational system for C2BMC personnel at various locations around the world. This training system provides the flexibility to simulate the operational system with digital models, hardware-in-the-loop assets, and/or operational systems for more realistic training and real world operational exercises.

Lockheed Martin Corporation launched and guided a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB missile to engage a sophisticated, separating short-range ballistic missile target. During the Missile Defense Agency test, U.S. Navy sailors aboard USS Lake Erie (CG-70) used the Aegis BMD Weapon System in an operational test environment to discriminate a ballistic missile target among multiple separating objects designed to present a realistic threat scenario. The target, launched from the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii, traveled approximately the distance from Boston to Washington, D.C. The test also marks an important milestone for the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to missile defense in Europe, demonstrating PAA Phase 2 SM-3 Block IB capabilities planned for deployment in 2015 at a land-based Aegis Ashore site in Romania and aboard Navy ships to protect U.S. interests on the continent.