DALLAS, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Lockheed Martin received a contract for 50 HIMARS tactical rocket systems to be delivered to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.
Delivery on the $166 million pact will be completed in February 2009 and will consist of 44 systems for the Army and 16 for the Marines.
Lockheed said the work would be performed in Texas and Arkansas.
The HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) is a self-contained mobile unit designed to travel with U.S. expeditionary forces and lay down precise, long-range fire against enemy troop concentrations, vehicles, artillery and other targets. Because it is truck-mounted on a five-ton tactical vehicle, it can then hustle out of the area before the enemy can shoot back.
The system is also the right size to move by C-130 aircraft, which enables it to travel with highly mobile combat units. Its future missions are envisioned as involving airborne arrivals and the commencement of launches within minutes landing.
"The HIMARS system, which is on track for cost and schedule, brings unprecedented capabilities to the modular force," Col. Earnest Harris, project manager for Precision Fires Rocket and Missile Systems. "HIMARS' mobility and transportability, coupled with the MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) family of munitions, bring all- weather, long-range precision fires with near-vertical impact to theater, which greatly reduces collateral damage."
Low-rate production of the system was started in 2003 and it was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The system has been considered for acquisition by a number of potential foreign customers.
