Despite attempts by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to land the final blow to the terminated Joint Common Missile program, appropriations conferees have approved a measure that would keep the missile's development on life support by funneling funds into the program.

House and Senate conferees last week ironed out the details of the fiscal year 2006 defense appropriations bill, which included a $30 million add to the Army-led JCM program to continue the missile's development.

"The conferees support continuation of this program noting that this is the first program to have successfully completed the requirements determination process implemented in the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System," the House version of the bill said.

Accordingly, lawmakers said the Army would provide $26 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding to the program, and the Navy would chip in $4 million in RDT&E funding.

Additionally, conferees are directing the defense secretary to submit a report by Jan. 30, 2006, to the congressional defense committees explaining how the Defense Department will mitigate the capability gaps identified in the JCIDS analysis and provide a cost comparison analysis of continuing the JCM program versus terminating the program and continuing procurement of legacy air-to-ground missiles.

In July, Army Acquisition Executive Claude Bolton said the Army was planning to develop and purchase modified Hellfire missiles in lieu of JCM but said the service had two years to make a final decision on the path ahead ( Inside the Army , July 11, p1).

However, one industry source said that modifying the Hellfire missile line would prove more costly for the service than continuing development and eventual procurement of the JCM.

JCM, designed as a next-generation, multipurpose replacement for Hellfire, Longbow Hellfire and Maverick air-to-ground missiles, was terminated by the Defense Department last year in program budget decision No. 753. The program's termination cut $2.3 billion in funding that had been earmarked to complete development and buy 2,134 missiles ( ITA , Jan. 17, p1). The Army's share of the cut was $928 million, the Navy's $1.5 billion.

In an e-mailed response to ITA last week, JCM prime contractor Lockheed Martin said it was pleased that conferees recognize the importance of the JCM.

"We remain committed to delivering this much needed capability to our warfighters. We look forward to commenting further when the bills before Congress are approved and signed by the president," a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman said Dec. 20.

One industry source who spoke with ITA Dec. 20, said the $30 million add would be enough to keep the program together at a "very low effort level." However, the source noted that program supporters are waiting with "baited breath" to see if OSD ties up the money.

At press time (Dec. 23), the House and Senate had approved the spending bill but President Bush had not signed it into law.

Following the termination of JCM, varied reports on the program's health surfaced.

Vice Adm. Stanley Szemborski, principal deputy director of the Pentagon's program analysis and evaluation directorate, said an independent estimate of the program concluded costs would "dramatically" increase ( ITA , March 7, p3).

Lockheed Martin, however, contends that the JCM program was not only on schedule for a four-year research, development, test and evaluation phase, but on target to deliver missiles for $120,000 each in the low-rate initial production phase I, $94,000 each in LRIP-II and less than $80,000 apiece during full-rate production.

During the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference in May, the commander of the Army's Aviation and Missile Command Maj. Gen. James Pillsbury shed some light on a possible funding strategy for the JCM ( ITA , May 16, p1).

Pillsbury told reporters May 10 that by leveraging available FY-05 funds for JCM, the Army would have enough money to keep the program alive in the "tech base" while the service re-evaluates the termination decision.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we need this capability," Pillsbury said.

"There are sufficient funds in the program, for this year and next, to keep it warm [and] keep the tech base alive," Pillsbury later said.

By keeping the program alive in the tech base, the Army and Navy, which also planned to purchase the missiles, will buy time for the termination decision re-evaluated at the "highest-level," according to Pillsbury.

At the time, one industry source said the Army could be holding back on the termination process and providing additional funding for the program in an effort to keep Lockheed Martin's JCM development team intact. If the program is revived, perhaps by Congress in FY-06 budget, such actions would prevent additional schedule delays and increased program costs.

Then in October, the Bush administration attempted to land the final blow to JCM when they asked lawmakers to rescind $34 million from the program ( ITA , Nov. 7, p2).

The rescission package, dated Oct. 28 and signed by the Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolton, asks Congress to rescind $2.3 billion from various federal programs -- including $151 million from Defense Department efforts -- for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Accordingly, OMB said the JCM program has a $34.6 million "unobligated balance" that would be better spent on hurricane relief efforts.

"Rescinding these funds will have a minimal impact on other Army [research and development] programs," OMB told lawmakers.

Congress has not moved on the rescission package