Another POS weapons system still alive -> NLOS @ $466K per missile

[unhappycamper]

Committee shifts NLOS R&D funding to Navy
By Kate Brannen - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 12, 2010 20:24:47 EDT

Anticipating and encouraging the Navy’s takeover of the Non-Line of Sight Launch System program, the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee transfers $75 million in research and development funding for the program from the Army to the Navy in its markup of the defense authorization bill for 2011, according to congressional documents.

~snip~

“However, the committee is concerned that the Army chose to terminate a program that had been touted for years as a key element in improving the lethality of light infantry brigades,” the language reads. “The committee is also concerned that the Army is walking away from a $1.0 billion investment in research and development for this system.”

The Army’s decision to recommend Carter cancel the program came after a series of poor test results and the service’s completion of a precision-fires portfolio review. The NLOS-LS Precision Attack Missile failed to hit its target four out of six times during a flight-limited user test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., between Jan. 26 and Feb. 5. The Army determined that fixing the system’s problems would delay the program more than a year and keep it from being included in the first brigade set of Increment 1 equipment of the Brigade Combat Team-Modernization program.

The cost of the system’s missile had also become a key concern. There are two major components to NLOS-LS: the Precision Attack Missile built by Raytheon and the Lockheed Martin Container Launch Unit.

In the Army's budget request for 2011, each Precision Attack Missile costs $466,000. Both the service and industry expected that, once the missile reached full-rate production, that number would fall.