Taurus bullish on KEPD 350 integration on F-15K, prospect of land-based variant
James Hardy, Seoul - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly 19 October 2015



The Taurus Systems KEPD 350 stand-off cruise missile is being integrated onto South Korea's F-15K fleet and should be in service by the start of 2016, company officials said at ADEX 2015.

A KEPD 350 was displayed alongside an F-15K for the first time. Taurus - a joint venture between European groups MBDA and Saab - is also in talks with local defence manufacturer LIG Nex1 to develop a land-based version of the Taurus missile and displayed a canister-launched model at the biennial defence exhibition at Seoul Airport.

The KEPD 350 missile was selected by South Korea in 2013 for a 180-missile requirement for a long-range air-launched cruise missile. Seoul had originally sought to purchase Lockheed Martin's AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) but this was blocked by the United States.

The 500 km-range Taurus being built for South Korea is identical to that in service with Spain's F-18 and Germany's Tornado fleets except that it has a new GPS receiver, Oliver Kessler, director of business development for Taurus Systems Korea, told IHS Jane's .

While the priority is to fulfil the programme under contract for the Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF), Kessler said the company is also pursuing follow-on contracts for the standard KEPD 350; the land-based version; and a smaller, air-launched variant that could be fitted to the RoKAF's KAI FA-50 light fighter.

The FA-50 variant would take advantage of the KEPD 350's modular design. Kessler said studies to integrate a standard version of the missile on the FA-50 had found that the Taurus was "too big", so the plan was to remove one fuel tank from the missile. This would make it shorter and lighter, Kessler said, although its range would be reduced to about 400 km.

The missile's modular design was also a key element of plans to develop a land-based version, Kessler said.

http://www.janes.com/article/55366/a...-based-variant