page_title: Guided bomb
section_title: Satellite
hierarchical_section_title: Guided bomb / Guidance / Satellite
caption_attribution_description: English: United States Air Force test pilot Major John Teichert, releases a guided bomb unit (GBU)-32 1,000-lbs Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) from a USAF F/A-22A Raptor fighter at supersonic speed for the first time near California's Panamint Mountain range.
context_page_description: A guided bomb is a precision-guided munition designed to achieve a smaller circular error probable.
  Because the damage effects of explosive weapons fall off with distance according to a power law, even modest improvements in accuracy enable a target to be effectively attacked with fewer or smaller bombs. Therefore, with guided weapons, fewer air crews are put at risk, less ordnance spent, and collateral damage reduced.
  The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the retroactive renaming of older bombs as unguided bombs or "dumb bombs".
context_section_description: Lessons learned during the first Gulf War showed the value of precision munitions, yet they also highlighted the difficulties in employing them—specifically when visibility of the ground or target from the air was degraded. The problem of poor visibility does not affect satellite-guided weapons such as Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW), which make use of the United States' GPS system for guidance. This weapon can be employed in all weather conditions, without any need for ground support. Because it is possible to jam GPS, the guidance package reverts to inertial navigation in the event of GPS signal loss. Inertial navigation is significantly less accurate; the JDAM achieves a published circular error probable (CEP) of 13 m under GPS guidance, but typically only 30 m under inertial guidance (with free fall times of 100 seconds or less).
  The precision of these weapons is dependent both on the precision of the measurement system used for location determination and the precision in setting the coordinates of the target. The latter critically depends on intelligence information, not all of which is accurate. According to a CIA report, the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during Operation Allied Force by NATO aircraft was attributed to faulty target information. However, if the targeting information is accurate, satellite-guided weapons are significantly more likely to achieve a successful strike in any given weather conditions than any other type of precision-guided munition.
  Other military satellite guidance systems include: Russian GLONASS, European Galileo (satellite navigation), Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, regional Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, Japanese regional Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.
caption: An F-22 releases a JDAM from its center internal bay while flying at supersonic speed
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