Lockheed Martin reveals test launches of two versions of CMMT modular missile

Lockheed Martin's CMMT-D is inserted into a three-cell Rapid Dragon mount prior to flight-testing. (Lockheed Martin)

Two versions of Lockheed Martin's Common Multi-Mission Truck (CMMT) missile are in flight-testing, the company announced on 16 July. The CMMT family is intended to provide inexpensive multirole cruise missiles capable of deployment from a variety of air and ground platforms.

CMMT-Demonstrator (CMMT-D), the first instantiation of the CMMT family, began flight tests in May at the Tillamook Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Test Range in Oregon. A single missile was installed inside a three-cell Rapid Dragon pallet – a mounting system used to deploy missiles from the rear ramps of cargo aircraft – slung underneath a Bell UH-1 helicopter and dropped from 14,500 ft (4,420 m) to simulate a parachute deployment.

“Immediately after that safe release, [CMMT-D] deployed its wings and completed a pull-up into an unpowered horizontal glide where, if it had been a powered flight, that's where the engine would have ignited,” Scott Callaway, Lockheed Martin's director for Affordable Mass, told Janes on 10 July.

Although no further CMMT-D testing is scheduled, pending customer interest in the version, the next step would be a powered flight test, Callaway said.

“We're continuing to mature the design and working through the details of what the future would look like for CMMT-D, since it's designed to implement distributed production to meet future surge requirements. In the near future, we'll continue to look for opportunities to conduct more prototype testing,” Callaway continued.

CMMT-Experimental (CMMT-X), a smaller version of the cruise missile roughly half the weight of CMMT-D, began flight-testing in June at Oregon's Pendleton UAS Range, dropped from a rack attached to a Piper Navajo test aircraft. Tests included a powered flight.