Thread: New Stand-off cruise missile candidate for the JSF

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
04.06 2011

TÜBİTAK SAGE DEVELOPED THE FIRST CRUISE MISSILE OF TURKEY

SOM, which is Turkey’s first cruise missile, will be exhibited for the first time between 04-06 June 2011 at 2nd Air Force Base located in Çiğli, İzmir in scope of celebrating the 100th anniversary of Turkish Air Forces.
The missile system is being developed as 3 variants in accordance with the requirements of Turkish Air Force and it is able to destroy the predefined targets with high accuracy without getting into the effective range of the enemy air defense systems.
The missile has a range over 180 km and it has a specially designed body to avoid detection from air defense radars. It is able to follow the waypoints and terrain contours and make route corrections accordingly.
To aid Missile’s tightly coupled INS and GPS mid course guidance system, a Terrain Referenced Navigation (TRN) system has also been incorporated. Even if the GPS signal is jammed or interrupted, with the help of this system, the missile can get position updates using the terrain data preloaded to its computer.
On its terminal phase, the missile matches the image from its imaging infrared (IIR) seeker with the one loaded during mission planning, hits the target with a few meters accuracy and destroys it with its high explosive warhead.
The missile has been developed to be used with F-4E 2020 and F-16 Block 40 aircrafts of Turkish Air Force. In addition, the work related with the certification of the missile to F-35 aircraft has recently been started.

http://www.sage.tubitak.gov.tr/THG20...iklama_eng.htm

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu, TÜBİTAK) has unveiled a new Stand-off cruise missile which is intended to be integrated on the F-35.

Turkey’s first indigenous stand-off missile is designed for destroying both fixed and large moving targets at a range of over 180 kilometers. Currently referred to by the TurAF as SOM, it can be used as a precision strike weapon against both land or sea targets. TUBITAK-SAGE officials state that the initial demonstartion flights of the prototypes were completed successfully at undisclosed locations and the delivery of a first batch of missiles to TurAF would take place by the end of 2011 following more vigorous live firing tests scheduled for the rest of the year.

SOM missile uses GPS (Global Positioning System) as its primary mode of guidance complemented by an advanced intertial navigation system and a radar-based terrain contour matching system, dubbed TERCOM, allowing the missile to ‘hug’ the terrain during its flight as to avoid detection by radar. SOM also features improved geometry and aerodynamics over similar missile systems, as well as lightweight composite components that minimize the radar cross-section of the missile and turning it stealth. A terminal stage infrared imager recognizes the individual target by matching its signature with a pre-loaded database of similar targets and allows for precision homing and strike.

SOM can currently be installed and used on TurAF F-4 Phantom and F-16 aircraft.

Certification work is in progress to enable the missile for use on the F-35.