Boeing receives contract for Harpoon, SLAM-ER missile work

Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Boeing has received a contract worth $10.5 million from the Navy for upgrades and logistical support for the Harpoon/SLAM-ER family of guided anti-ship and land attack missiles.

Work on the contract, announced Monday by the Department of Defense, will run through November 2019 as part of an existing support contract and includes Foreign Military Sales customers. The modification was awarded Nov. 29.

The A/U/RGM-84 Harpoon is an anti-ship missile system capable of being launched by aircraft, surface ships, submarines and shore batteries.

The Harpoon is a subsonic missile with a range of over 70 miles and a 488-pound blast/fragmentation warhead. It has been in use with upgrades since 1977 and is a standard anti-ship weapon with 28 countries.

The updated Block II version of the missile includes GPS guidance, anti-jamming electronic warfare systems and the ability to abort the launch. Like it's sister missile the SLAM-ER, it can perform land attack missions.

The AGM-84K Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response is a longer ranged upgraded version of the original SLAM, which is itself a development of the Harpoon.

The missile is designed as a stand-off weapon with multiple guidance systems including inertial navigation, GPS, infrared and pilot-guided TV strike. It has Automatic Target Acquisition for determining targets in high traffic areas and jamming environments.