DALLAS , TX, 25-OCT-01 -- Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control's High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) has successfully completed several recent Technical Demonstration (TD) test firings. The firings further proved the system's ability to fire the current Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Family of Munitions (MFOM). In early October, HIMARS successfully fired 18 MLRS Extended-Range rockets at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Additionally, in mid-October, a HIMARS TD launcher successfully fired an Army Tactical Missile System (Army TACMS) Block IA missile.

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control developed and fabricated four operational HIMARS prototypes as part of the Army's Rapid Force Projection Initiative Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration contract, which was awarded to the company in March 1996. Three of the wheeled vehicles (a platoon) are undergoing user evaluation at the Army's XVIIIth Airborne Corps Artillery. Missiles and Fire Control is maintaining the fourth vehicle for testing and evaluation.

The HIMARS program entered the maturation or engineering and manufacturing (EMD) phase in December 1999. In this phase of the program, six HIMARS launchers will be built for the U.S. Army and two for the U.S. Marine Corps. These launchers will be used for engineering and development testing. The HIMARS program is managed by the Precision Fires Rocket And Missile Systems Project Office at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

HIMARS is a C-130 transportable, wheeled, indirect fire, rocket/missile system capable of firing all rockets and missiles in the current and future Multiple Launch Rocket System Family of Munitions (MFOM). HIMARS provides 24 hour ground-based, responsive General Support/General Support Reinforcing/Reinforcing (GS/GSR/R) indirect fires, which accurately engage targets at long range with high volumes of lethal fire. The system will extend the range of support provided to warfighting forces from 30 km to 60 km.

The HIMARS fire control system, electronics and communications units are interchangeable with the MLRS M270A1 launcher, and the crew and training are the same. Because of its size, HIMARS can be deployed into areas previously inaccessible to the larger aircraft required to transport the standard MLRS launcher. It also retains the self-loading, autonomous features that have made MLRS the premier rocket artillery system in the world.

Employing more than 8,500 people, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with additional base operations in Orlando, Fla., and manufacturing and assembly facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif., Chelmsford, Mass., Camden, Ark., Horizon City and Lufkin, Texas, Ocala, Fla., White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Troy, Ala. The company is a business unit of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Bethesda, Md.