Boeing will offer a “derivative” of its original Small Diameter Bomb, company program manager Dan Jaspering said in a teleconference with reporters Tuesday following selection of teams led by Boeing and Raytheon to compete for the SDB II contract. The body of the new version and the warhead will be engineered by Boeing; the multi-mode seeker, to be developed by Lockheed, will include both millimeter wave radar and imaging infrared technology. Even with the space consumed by the new seeker, SDB II must still come in at 250 pounds—warhead and all. The team must also develop a two-way datalink so the pilot can update the target while the weapon is in flight, but it need not use the Link 16 data system, Jaspering said.
The Air Force conducted its first successful test of the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, on May 14, snapping a streak of three consecutive failed tests and giving the beleaguered hypersonics program a much needed boost. Off the coast of Southern California, the AGM-183A ARRW separated from the wing…