Raytheon receives $523 million for Standard Missile-3 production and delivery

: Posted On Thursday, 04 August 2016 10:32

Naval Forces News - Raytheon

Raytheon receives $523 million for Standard Missile-3 production and delivery

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency exercised a $523 million contract option with Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) to produce, test and deliver 47 Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB interceptors for operational testing and deployment.

Raytheon Standard Missile-3 (Photo Raytheon)

This is the fiscal year 2016 option under the $2,351,177,872 contract for Standard Missiles awarded to the company in 2015. The guided missiles are used by the U.S. Navy to provide regional defense against short-to-intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.

"Standard Missile-3 plays a critical role in the missile defense of the U.S. and its allies," said Dr. Taylor W. Lawrence, Raytheon Missile Systems president. "SM-3's sophisticated capability to destroy enemy ballistic missiles in space, and its flexibility to deploy from land or from sea make it invaluable as the centerpiece of the President's Phased Adaptive Approach for missile defense in Europe."

Production under this contract will be completed at Raytheon's world-class Space Factory in Tucson, Ariz., and integration will take place at Raytheon's state-of-the-art integration facility in Huntsville, Ala.

About Standard Missile-3 : SM-3s destroy incoming ballistic missile threats in space using nothing more than sheer impact, which is equivalent to a 10-ton truck traveling at 600 mph.