A Raytheon and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-built guided missile has completed a review intended to evaluate the weapon’s design and ability to deflect and beat threats.
Standard Missile-3 Block IIA weapons are built to destroy adversarial ballistic missiles by colliding with them, Raytheon said Thursday.
“This milestone is critical because it moves the SM-3 Block IIA program from design to build,” said Taylor Lawrence, Raytheon Missile Systems president.
Raytheon and Mitsubishi worked with other subcontractors in the past 18 months to develop hardware and test subsystems intended to lessen integration issues before the CDR.
“Once deployed, SM-3 Block IIA will provide the U.S. and Japan capability to defend larger geographic areas from longer-range ballistic missile threats,” Lawrence added.
The missile will be put through flight tests in two years.
