Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems said it has been awarded a $543 million contract by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to produce a larger, advanced version of its Standard Missile-3 ballistic missile interceptor, after announcing the weapon’s second successful flight test.
The company also won a $98 million contract to supply precision-guided mortars to the Marine Corps, according to a Pentagon contract notice issued Wednesday.
Raytheon said the company and the Navy have successfully conducted a second flight test of the ship-based SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, ahead of live intercept testing next year.
The SM-3 is part of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, a key component of a U.S. missile-defense shield for Europe. The Block IB version of the SM-3 already is deployed aboard U.S warships. A land-based version of the Aegis system is under development, with a launch site under construction in Romania and another planned in Poland.
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During the flight test, an SM-3 Block IIA was launched from the Navy’s Point Mugu Sea Range on Saint Nicolas Island in California. No intercept was planned, but the mission successfully tested the missile’s kinetic warhead and flight-control system, nose-cone performance, steering-control section, booster motor separation, and second- and third-stage rocket motor separation, Raytheon said.
The Block IIA features an advanced kill vehicle and larger rocket motors to meet threats sooner and protect larger regions from short- to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats, the company said.
Raytheon Missile Systems President Taylor Lawrence said in prepared remarks that the successful test “keeps the program on track for deployment at sea and ashore in the 2018 timeframe.”
The next live-fire test of the SM-3 Block IIA is planned in 2016, when the missile will be fired from a Navy warship for a planned intercept, Raytheon said.
Work on the contract to supply 17 of the SM-3 Block IIA missiles to the Missile Defense Agency will be performed in Tucson, with expected completion by March 2020. Fiscal 2016 research and development funds of $10 million were obligated at the time of the award, the Defense Department said.
Also on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that Raytheon was awarded a $98 million contract by the Marine Corps for procurement of the 120 mm Precision Extended Range Munition, a precision-guided mortar round Raytheon developed with government-owned Israeli Military Industries.
The competitively bid contract will include low-rate initial production rounds and is to be completed by December 2020, with 39 percent of the work to be performed in Israel, 32 percent in Tucson and the rest in other U.S. sites, according to a contract notice.
Orbital ATK, which produces a precision guidance kit for mortar rounds for the Army, also has bid for the Marine Corps contract.
