Raytheon's SM-6 Missile Headed for Sea-Based Trials
BY RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor
The SM-6 Extended-Range Air-Defense Missile (ERAM) is being loaded on an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer and is headed to sea next week for a series of launches at the Pacific Missile Range in Hawaii, the first sea-based launches for the new missile.
Six SM-6 missiles are being sent for five planned developmental test flights, Daniel M. Lambert, Raytheon Missile Systems’ senior manager of business development for naval weapon systems said during a May 5 briefing at the Navy League’s 2010 Sea-Air-Space Exposition. During the missile’s system development and demonstration phase, four SM-6 missiles conducted four successful intercepts, including one over-the-horizon test.
The SM-6 is a modification of an SM-2 missile with the seeker head from an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). After launch, the missile can be fed target-location data from an airborne platform such as an E-2D Hawkeye early warning aircraft via a ship’s link to the missile. The missile starts illuminating the target itself with its AMRAAM seeker. The ERAM can intercept air targets over the horizon from the launching ship at more than double the range of an SM-2.
The SM-6, now in low-rate initial production, is a pillar of the Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter-Air concept of operations. Initial operational capability of the SM-6 is scheduled for 2011.
Lambert also said Raytheon is working to reduce life-cycle costs of shipboard missiles like ERAM by designing a suitcase test set so that the missile does not have to risk damage from having to be removed from its canister to have its circuits tested.
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