Lockheed-Martin Wins CKEM Program

The US Army has selected Lockheed-Martin to carry out the development and production of Compact Kinetic Energy Missile (CKEM) next generation hypervelocity, man-portable, anti-tank weapon.

The CKEM weapon is being developed for deployment within the Future Combat Systems (FCS). Lockheed-Martin is working on CKEM under a 36-month, $60 million Advanced Technology Demonstration contract awarded in October 2003 by the US Army. The company will now proceed as the sole contractor for the CKEM ATD phase.

The CKEM ATD phase would be completed in 2006. Then a two-year System Design and Development phase is expected to turn the CKEM demonstrator into a suitable weapon system.

The CKEM is a 60 inches (1.5 meters) long, less than 100 pounds (45 kg) missile intended for extended range direct fire, line-of-sight engagements replacing TOW and other legacy systems in current use by the US Army.

Current plans call for CKEM to be deployed on US Army's HUMVEEs and then transitioning to FCS vehicles as well as other vehicle families. The weapon system will be able to defeat heavy armored vehicles, light armored vehicles, bunkers, field fortifications, helicopters and crew-served weapons.

Lockheed-Martin's team members in the CKEM program are: ATK, Honeywell, EaglePicher and Haigh-Farr.

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