Dollars earmarked for a Joint Common Missile program will be included in the Army's long-term spending plan, covering fiscal years 2008 to 2013, when it is submitted to the office of the secretary of defense over the next few weeks, Lt. Gen. Jerry Sinn, the service's budget chief, told Inside the Army last week. However, it remains unclear if the other services will commit the necessary resources to revive the missile program.

“When we put this [program objective memorandum] together, we're going to fund it,” Sinn told ITA following a Sept. 7 breakfast sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army's Institute for Land Warfare. The three-star added that in the “neighborhood” of $150 million would be included to fund the JCM program in FY-08.

Sinn's assertion to fund the program brings a glimmer of hope to a programmatic soap opera that has played out over the past year-and-a-half. But despite the Army's current position to support JCM development, it is unclear if it will be the sole service to forge ahead.

Last week, sister publication Inside the Navy reported that the Navy has not included JCM funding in its POM-08 request, according to Lt. Cmdr. Anthony “Gretzky” Wright, the air-to-ground weapons requirements officer for the office of the chief of naval operations.

Designed as a next-generation, multipurpose replacement for Hellfire, Longbow Hellfire and Maverick air-to-ground missiles, JCM was slated for termination by the Defense Department in program budget decision No. 753, issued in December 2004.

Once the termination order was handed down, a series of events were set into motion -- the Army kept the program afloat by slowing down the expenditure of funds; lawmakers rallied to keep the program alive by adding funds into the Army's and Navy's FY-06 budgets for missile development; and the Joint Staff revalidated the JCM requirement.

With the requirement revalidated, it is now time to look at how to proceed with a joint program -- a decision that has not been made, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Edmund Giambastiani said last week.

“The services have come in and we have all gotten together and we have a requirement for this missile and we need the capability it brings,” Giambastiani told ITA Sept. 5 at the Marine Corps Association and the U.S. Naval Institute Defense Forum Washington.

“The missile program has had some problems in the past so it is not just a requirements issue, it is a funding issue and it's an acquisition issue. We're told that most of the technology risk levels have gone to a high enough point where it appears as though, when properly funded, that the program with good management could move forward. But those decisions haven't been made yet,” the four-star admiral added.

Giambastiani's statement about JCM technology readiness again touched on a contingent issue that surfaced after PBD 753 was issued -- the program's health.

In March 2005, Vice Adm. Stanley Szemborski, principal deputy director of the Pentagon's program analysis and evaluation directorate, told lawmakers that an independent estimate of the program concluded that costs would “dramatically” increase.

JCM prime contractor Lockheed Martin, however, contends that the JCM program was not only on schedule for a four-year RDT&E phase, but on target to deliver each missile at a unit cost of $120,000 in the low-rate initial production I phase, $94,000 in LRIP-II and $80,000 during full-rate production.

JCM was being designed to be fired from the Army AH-64D Apache helicopter, the Marine Corps AH-1Z Cobra helicopter, the Navy's F/A-18E/F tactical fighter and the special operations MH-60R Pave Hawk helicopter.

In PBD No. 753, signed Dec. 23 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon cut $2.3 billion in JCM funding allocated to complete development and buy 2,134 missiles. The Army's share was $928 million, the Navy's $1.5 billion.

Additionally, the memorandum instructed the Defense Department to “determine the capability needs to equip fixed-wing tactical aircraft, rotary-winged and unmanned air vehicles with precision air-to ground close air support weapons by the FY-08 [through] FY-13 Program/Budget Review.”

Sinn told ITA last week that the Defense Department has looked at an alternative solution to a JCM but it would cost the Army $1 billion “over time.”

“In the business that I am in now, I object,” Sinn added.

Although the three-star did not specify what the JCM alternative solution examined was, ITA has reported that the Army has begun looking at modified Hellfire missiles.

Meanwhile, the JCM program is positioned to gain a congressional plus-up in FY-07.

In the House version of the FY-07 defense appropriations bill, approved by the full chamber on June 21, $35 million was included for the missile program -- $30 million from the Army's research, development, test and evaluation budget line and $5 million from the Navy's RDT&E budget line.

“The committee strongly encourages the Department of Defense to fully resource the Joint Common Missile program in order to provide flight crews with a weapon system that has greater engagement range, insensitive munitions technology and improved seeker, warhead and rocket motor technologies,” according to the lawmakers' report on the bill passed by the committee June 13.

The Senate version of the bill did not include program funding so it is now up to House and Senate conferees to decide if and how much funding the JCM program will receive next year.

In addition to possible dollars allocated for the program in FY-07, the FY-06 Defense Appropriations Act added $30 million to continue the missile's development.

However, in June an Army spokesman told ITA that the service has not received the $30 million lawmakers earmarked.

Despite the status of the program, Lockheed Martin says it remains committed to the missile's development.

“We are continuing to meet our technical, schedule and budget objectives on this transformational program, to mature the technologies on the current U.S. Government contract,” a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman said in an Aug. 31 e-mail. “We remain committed to delivering this highly capable joint capability to our warfighters as quickly as possible.”