JDAM team earns precision strike award Published Jan. 22, 2004 By Tech. Sgt. David A. Jablonski Air Force Print News WASHINGTON -- The Air Force Joint Program Office received the William J. Perry Strike Award for developing and delivering the Joint Direct Attack Munition to the warfighter.The award was presented by the Precision Strike Association on Jan. 21 at its Winter Roundtable meeting in Arlington, Va.The award recognizes leadership or technical achievement that results in significant contributions to the development, introduction or support of precision strike systems. The JPO shared this year’s award with the Navy. JDAM is the eighth recipient of the award with past winners including Dr. Perry, Vice President Dan Quayle, retired Navy Rear Adm. Walter Locke, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, the NAVSTAR GPS program, Rep. Jim Hansen and Terry R. Little.Recipients are honored for making significant contributions that have led to the strengthening of national security by direct application of precision-strike capabilities to Defense Department systems or the enhancement of the industrial technology base for application to precision-strike technology.The JDAM is a guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather "smart" munitions. With the addition of a new tail section that contains an inertial navigational system and a Global Positioning System guidance control unit, JDAM improves the accuracy of unguided, general-purpose bombs in any weather condition. JDAM is a joint U. S. Air Force and Department of Navy program.JDAM is a guided air-to-surface weapon that uses either the 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK 84 or the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK 83 warheads as the payload. JDAM enables employment of accurate air-to-surface weapons against high-priority fixed and relocatable targets from fighter and bomber aircraft. Guidance is facilitated through a tail control system and a GPS-aided INS. The navigation system is initialized by transfer alignment from the aircraft that provides position and velocity vectors from the aircraft systems.The JDAM was used extensively during Operation Iraqi Freedom.