Congress Poised To Cancel Non-Nuclear Version Of Air Force’s Future Stealth Cruise Missile
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the latest annual defense policy bill, covering the 2020 Fiscal Year, which eliminates the Congressional requirement for the U.S. Air Force to develop a conventionally armed variant of its future nuclear-tipped Long-Range Stand-Off air-launched cruise missile, or LSRO. It is very likely that this decision is linked to the development of a new extreme-range variant of the AGM-158 Joint Air-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM-XR, which will be able to hit targets over 1,000 miles away and is scheduled to be out of testing in 2023.