Army calculating distance of last month's PrSM test

YUMA PROVING GROUND, AZ -- The Precision Strike Missile flew 499 kilometers in a maximum-distance test last month before the Army stopped receiving telemetry data, but the missile flew farther, Gen. John Murray, leader of Army Futures Command, said Nov. 9.

“We lost telemetry at 499.2,” Murray said at a press conference at the Project Convergence 21 experiment.

The service is still determining how far PrSM flew after the telemetry data stopped, Col. Cobb Leslie, chief of staff for the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, told reporters earlier in the day.

“They’re still running through the data,” Leslie said. “They’re running through some analysis to figure out how far.”

For the Oct. 13 maximum distance test, the Army launched a PrSM into the Pacific Ocean. Although the stated range of the missile has been 499 km, there were expectations it would go significantly farther.

After the test, Lockheed Martin, which builds PrSM, said that the missile broke its previous 400 km record, but declined to say exactly how far it flew.

The Army scheduled another PrSM test for Nov. 9, when senior leaders visited Yuma Proving Ground for Project Convergence. This would be the first time that two PrSM missiles were fired out of the same pod.

The first test fire, around 9 a.m. Mountain Time, was successful, Leslie said. The second was scheduled for 1 p.m., after he spoke with reporters.

During the press conference later in the day, Murray said he was not aware of the results of the second test fire. As of publication, Inside Defense was waiting for comment from the Army on the result of the second test.