• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Excelitas Qioptiq banner

BATTLESPACE Updates

   +44 (0)77689 54766
   

  • Home
  • Features
  • News Updates
  • Company Directory
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Media Pack 2022

NORTHROP/RAYTHEON TEAM WINS MISSILE CONTRACT

December 5, 2003 by

03 Dec 03. A Northrop Grumman Corp.-Raytheon Co. team has won a contract worth as much as $4.5bn over eight years to develop an antimissile rocket capable of knocking out warheads in their first five minutes of flight, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The winners beat out a rival team made up of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. to build the “kinetic energy interceptor,” part of President Bush’s planned multilayered shield against ballistic missiles such as those that could be launched by North Korea. The interceptor would destroy a target by smashing into it when a missile is most vulnerable, during its boost or early-ascent flight stages, before decoys may be deployed. In a successful intercept, the missile and its warhead, possibly tipped with chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, might fall back on the attacking nation.

The Bush administration has earmarked $50 billion over the next five years to build a missile defense with an initial, rudimentary, capability to shoot down incoming warheads by next Sept. 30. Los Angeles-based Northrop will lead the team. Raytheon, based in Lexington, Massachusetts, will be the chief subcontractor responsible for developing and integrating the interceptor and a significant portion of weapon system engineering, the companies said.

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said it had awarded the contract without regard to a recent management shake-up and ethics issues dogging Boeing, which won the prime contract for integrating the overall ground-based leg of the missile defense system in 1998. Chicago-based Boeing had competed “without any stigma,” said Rick Lehner, a missile agency spokesman. “Recent events had nothing to do with the fact that they were not selected.”

The winners wisely relied on a “proven” design that adapted technology already being used on the Standard Missile 3, the interceptor on Aegis cruisers, Air Force Maj. Gen. Henry Obering, the missile agency’s deputy chief, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The initial installment of the contract is worth about $56 million, Northrop Chief Executive Ron Sugar said in a conference call with reporters, not enough to change the company’s earnings guidance for the coming year.

“This is a very important win for Northrop Grumman,” he said. “It solidifies our position as a prime contractor in missile defense. It firmly establishes our company as the top-tier systems integrator.”

In addition, Sugar said, it validated the acquisition last year of TRW Inc. to bolster Northrop’s position in missile defense. The single interceptor design chosen for this contract is compatible with both land-and sea-basing, the Pentagon said.

The first flight test of the new land-based interceptor is scheduled for 2009, Northrop officials said. It could be used in a “layered” defense as early as 2010, the Pentagon said.

The competing teams each had won $10 million contracts for conceptual design work on the interceptor. The kinetic energy interceptor complements other missile defense programs now in development and testing. Among these are ground-based interceptor missiles and their “kill vehicles” that could attack warheads in the middle of their flights, when they are coasting through space.

After being released, an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle is supposed to be guided to the hostile warhead by onboard infrared sensors and to destroy it by direct impact.

Boeing had also come in for criticism of its handling of the “kill vehicle,” analogous to the contract awarded Wednesday, for the ground-based midcourse missile defense. The contract to build that interceptor was awarded mainly for reasons other than technical merit after the misuse of proprietary information by Boeing employees, the General Accounting Office, Congress’s investigative arm, said on Jan. 30.

Raytheon won that contract on or about Dec. 1, 1998, after Boeing workers, who had a rival des

Primary Sidebar

Advertisers

  • qioptiq.com
  • Exensor
  • TCI
  • Visit the Oxley website
  • Visit the Viasat website
  • Blighter
  • SPECTRA
  • InVeris
  • Britbots logo
  • Faun Trackway
  • Systematic
  • CISION logo
  • ProTEK logo
  • businesswire logo
  • ProTEK logo
  • ssafa logo
  • DSEi
  • Atkins
  • IEE
  • EXFOR logo
  • KME logo
Hilux DVD2022

Contact Us

BATTLESPACE Publications
Old Charlock
Abthorpe Road
Silverstone
Towcester NN12 8TW

+44 (0)77689 54766

BATTLESPACE Technologies

An international defence electronics news service providing our readers with up to date developments in the defence electronics industry.

Recent News

  • EXHIBITIONS AND CONFERENCES

    May 20, 2022
    Read more
  • MANAGEMENT ON THE MOVE

    May 20, 2022
    Read more
  • CONTRACT NEWS IN BRIEF

    May 20, 2022
    Read more

Copyright BATTLESPACE Publications © 2002–2022.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. If you continue to use the website, we'll assume you're ok with this.   Read More  Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT