U.S. defense contractor Raytheon Co. hopes that it can market a developmental, land-based variant of a missile interceptor originally designed for use on warships, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 4).
The Obama administration asked for $50 million in fiscal 2010 to develop the modified Standard Missile 3 interceptor, which would target short- and medium-range missiles from land. With sufficient funding, the system could be ready for deployment as soon as 2013, according to Raytheon executives.
The defense system "could provide Israel a near-term solution to counter ballistic missiles from Iran," the company said in a presentation at a missile defense conference in Huntsville, Ala.
"If the program goes through to production and is deployed globally with international allies, the potential value ... will be more than $1 billion," said Michael Booen, a Raytheon vice president for advanced missile defense.
The system would employ a Raytheon-built radar system already fielded in Israel and Japan.
The U.S. Defense Department is considering the proposed system for inclusion in a European missile shield, according to Raytheon leaders. Russia has long opposed a proposal to field in Poland ground-based interceptors that could target its ICBMs, making SM-3 interceptors a potentially more acceptable alternative for countering an Iranian long-range missile threat.
U.S. Strategic Command head Gen. Kevin Chilton said that Washington was interested in a missile shield that would ensure "strategic stability" with China and Russia.
Fielding interceptors in Poland "is akin to having missiles in Cuba to them," he said, referring to the Russia's 1962 deployment that triggered the Cuban missile crisis.
Chilton did not specify whether the Pentagon was considering an SM-3 system as a replacement for the proposed ground-based interceptors. "There's all kind of potential solutions on the table, being discussed," he said (Jim Wolf, Reuters, Aug. 18).