Submitted by TEAM Public Affairs, Patuxent River

The Navy's Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) continued successful captive carry flight testing of its new Automatic Target Acquisition (ATA) system last week at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

The ATA system, which adds a small, internal hardware module to the missile as well as missile and mission planning software mods, provides SLAM-ER's standoff control pilot with real-time target cueing on the F/A-18's cockpit display, aiding him in finding the desired target aimpoint. ATA is designed to assist SLAM-ER operators in conducting strikes against targets in cluttered scenes and targets that may be obscured by counter-measures or other environmental conditions.

Mission planning for the ATA system is conducted on the Navy's Tactical Automated Mission Planning System (TAMPS). ATA mission planning makes use of reconnaissance satellite imagery available on the TAMPS system.

During the mission planning process, a target area image is retrieved, an aimpoint is selected on that image, and the image is compressed and included with the associated mission data. That data is then transferred to the missile from the F/A-18 cockpit prior to take-off. ATA mission planning does not require feature extraction, scene modeling or materials identification and adds only five minutes to SLAM-ERs current TAMPS mission planning. The Navy is considering adding the capability to plan ATA missions using tactical imagery (SAR, IR, UAV, etc.) in addition to national satellite imagery, as the ATA algorithms are also compatible with tactical imagery sources.

SLAM-ER's ATA pattern matching algorithms compare the on-board 'reference image', including features and patterns well away from the target, to the missile's infrared seeker image, and automatically locate the pre-planned aimpoint in the target scene. The missile provides seeker video and an annotated targeting cue to the standoff control aircraft via the AWW-13 data link. With ATA activated, the control pilot retains all of SLAM-ER's precision, man-in-the-loop terminal control capability. If the pilot chooses not to intervene, ATA is capable of providing terminal guidance into the target.

The captive carry runs at Pax River were carried out against a variety of 'targets' on the installation, including small buildings obscured by trees and clutter, a wharf area, and larger buildings such as hangars. The flight testing utilized the SLAM-ER's 'SIMFLIGHT' mode, in which the missile remains attached to its launch aircraft yet operates with fully active GPS/INS guidance, two-way data link, and man-in-the-loop control.

These tests follow similar tests conducted earlier in the Fall at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif. - and are part of the ATA program's developmental test phase. Developmental testing is scheduled to continue into 2001, with a series of free flight tests against targets at China Lake and San Nicolas Island, Calif. The Navy will authorize use of the ATA features of SLAM-ER later in 2001 following successful completion of a period of Operational Testing.

SLAM-ER reached full-rate production milestone (III) this past May, as reflected in the signing of the Acquisition Decision Memorandum by Dr. Lee Buchanan, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, and Acquisition).

The missile is an evolutionary upgrade to the combat-proven Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM). SLAM-ER fills an operational need for a surgical strike capability against high value, fixed land targets and ships at sea or in port, at standoff ranges greater than 150nm. SLAM-ER has been deployed aboard six carrier battle groups with trained aircrews ready for use in operational scenarios.