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Raytheon Technology recently participated in a Maneuver Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX) at the U.S. Army Fires Center of Excellence, in which its advanced high-power microwave and laser dune buggy engaged and destroyed 45 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).Raytheon’s high-power microwave system engaged multiple UAV swarms, downing 33 drones, two and three at a time. “The speed and low cost per engagement of directed energy is revolutionary in protecting our troops against drones,” Dr. Thomas Bussing, Raytheon Advanced Missile Systems vice president, said. “We have spent decades perfecting the high-power microwave system, which may soon give our military a significant advantage against...

The U.S. Air Force’s Small Diameter Bomb II program has seen such large cost overruns that the service will force the manufacturer, Raytheon, to absorb some of the increases, amounting to nearly $40 million. Both parties insist that the present production and delivery schedule won’t suffer, which is important given the present plan is for the precision guided munitions to become a core weapon system for a variety of American combat aircraft, especially the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. On Oct. 18, 2017, the Air Force acknowledged that Raytheon had run out of “financial liability” in its deal to develop the...

A Tomahawk cruise missile hits a moving maritime target Jan. 27, 2015 after being launched from the USS Kidd (DDG-100) near San Nicolas Island in California. US Navy Photo TUCSON, ARIZ. — The Navy and Raytheon are close to signing a deal to integrate a new sensor into the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile to allow the missile to attack moving targets at sea, the head of the Navy’s Tomahawk program told USNI News on Tuesday. Once the deal is complete, Raytheon will start work to craft and install a sensor to convert a yet-to-be-determined number of Block IV TLAMs into...

On Monday, Raytheon, a high energy laser system developer for the US army, said that it had bolted a laser to a U.S. Army Apache AH-64 helicopter and zapped an unmanned target at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The weapons test marked the first time a “fully integrated laser system” had successfully located and shot a target from a rotary-wing aircraft “over a wide variety of flight regimes, altitudes and air speeds,” the company said in a statement. Raytheon didn’t specify what the target was but said the helicopter’s laser “directed energy” on it from nearly a...

Raytheon, the company that makes the Tomahawk missiles used in the air strikes on Syria by the United States, is rising in early stock trading Friday. Investors seem to be betting President Trump's decision to retaliate against Syria after the chemical attack on Syrian citizens earlier this week may mean the Pentagon will need more Tomahawks. The Department of Defense asked for $2 billion over five years to buy 4,000 Tomahawks for the U.S. Navy in its fiscal 2017 budget last February. Nearly five dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at military bases in Syria from U.S. warships in the...

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has removed US arms giant Raytheon from its blacklist after it stopped manufacturing cluster weapons, Norway’s central bank announced on Wednesday. The fund, worth around 7.42 trillion kroner (€830 billion, $892 billion) and which is subject to strict ethical guidelines, excluded Raytheon from its portfolio in 2005 because of its role in the production of these weapons. International campaigners have long sought a ban on cluster weapons because of the serious danger they pose to civilian populations. …

Retired Marine Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright has reportedly lost his security clearance as an investigation into his involvement in national security leaks continues, Foreign Policy reports. Cartwright, a retired four-star general who served for 40 years and last served on the Joint Chiefs, has been the subject of an ongoing investigation into an alleged leak of classified information of the "Stuxnet" virus that targeted and temporarily disabled Iran's nuclear facilities in 2010. The general's legal team has called that assertion "preposterous." Gordon Lubold of FP reports that multiple current and former administration sources said Cartwright lost his clearance earlier this...

EXCLUSIVE: Amid the tumult of the 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta is best known as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the individual from whose private account WikiLeaks is presently publishing some 50,000 hacked emails. Released in daily batches, these documents have laid bare the inner workings and tensions of the Clinton campaign in an unprecedented way, while also offering insights into the operations of the Clinton Foundation and the State Department in the years when Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, served as secretary of state. At that time, when Clinton was traveling to a record number of foreign countries,...

A SeaRAM launcher at the Raytheon Louisville, Ky. plant. Raytheon Photo LOUISVILLE, KY. – The Navy is considering expanding the number of SeaRAM installations on its ships beyond a quartet of ballistic missile defense ships based in Spain and Littoral Combat Ships, a service official told USNI News on Tuesday. “Internally to the Navy there are trade studies going on to look at where to place SeaRAM on different ship classes,” Capt. Craig Bowden with Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems said. While no decisions have been made, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations assessment arm (OPNAV 81)...

The US Navy has started to receive its first power pulse modules, in container form, to power its experimental particle railgun, the Raytheon Company said in a press release on Monday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Raytheon's pulse power container design was developed for a $10 million contract with Naval Sea Systems Command to develop a pulsed power system, which will enable land or sea-based projectiles to reach great distances without the use of an explosive charge or rocket motor, the release added. US missile defense © Flickr/ U.S. Missile Defense Agency Reliance on Kinetic Missile Defense Systems Puts US at Disadvantage...

One of the missiles is 8 years old, the other is pushing 30. But steady technology upgrades have kept these two Navy air-to-air weapons on the cutting edge. The younger one is the AIM-9X Block II. The older is the AIM-120D AMRAAM — advanced medium-range air-to-air missile. The 9X Block II was introduced in 2008, but did not go into full rate production until 2015. It’s the latest member of the Sidewinder missile family that dates back to the mid-1970s. The 9X Block II can do things its predecessors could hardly have imagined. For example, it is equipped with a...

Raytheon is pitching a new upgrade for the venerable M60A3 Patton main battle tank that would turn the elderly design into a competitive force on the modern battlefield—all at a fraction of the cost of a new vehicle. Named the Raytheon M60A3 Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), the upgrade is being offered for export to nations that need the performance to take on threats like a Russian-built T-90S, but can’t afford a top-of-the-line machine like the M1A2 SEP(v)3 Abrams or Leopard 2A7. At the core of the upgrade is a new 950-horsepower diesel engine—which replaces the original 750-horsepower unit. As...

Qatar’s purchase of 254 surface-to-air missiles from an American weapons manufacturer has cleared a major hurdle after securing the approval of the US State Department. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the decision regarding the $260 million order from Raytheon Missile Systems in a statement published over the weekend. The agency stated that selling the weapons to Qatar would improve the national security of the US “by helping to improve the security of a friendly country.” It continued: “Qatar is an important force for political stability and economic progress in the (Gulf) region. This proposed sale will provide Qatar with...

US Navy / YouTube In response to a range of new threats to its ships, whether it be air- and surface-launched missiles or drone aircraft, the U.S. Navy is improving and expanding its ship-defense capabilities. In early March, a test on the USS Porter—a guided-missile destroyer stationed in Rota, Spain—paired Raytheon's new Block 2 Rolling Airframe Missile with a launch and tracking system called SeaRAM to demonstrate a new way to protect ships. Raytheon's Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) is a lightweight supersonic weapon designed to destroy anti-ship missiles and other airborne threats to a ship at close range, typically less...

India has placed an order for 245 Raytheon-built Stinger air-to-air missiles, launchers and related engineering support services through the Defense Department‘s foreign military sales program. Raytheon said Wednesday the Indian military expects to receive the Stingers as part of a potential $3.1 billion FMS agreement forged between the governments of India and the U.S. The deal also covers procurement of combat helicopters, electronic warfare systems, radars and weapons, Raytheon noted. The Stinger missile is designed to be integrated onto tactical ground platforms and fixed- or rotary-wing military aircraft. Raytheon has recorded more than 270 air intercepts for the system to...

Raymond Tomlinson, the inventor of modern email and selector of the "@" symbol, has died. He was 74. Raytheon Co., his employer, on Sunday confirmed his death; the details were not immediately available. Email existed in a limited capacity before Tomlinson in that electronic messages could be shared amid multiple people within a limited framework. But until his invention in 1971 of the first network person-to-person email, there was no way to send something to a specific person at a specific address. Here are five things to know about Tomlinson's invention: 1. The first email was sent on the ARPANET...

Raymond Tomlinson, the inventor of modern email and a technological leader, died Saturday. Raytheon Co., his employer, confirmed his death; the details were not immediately available. Email existed in a limited capacity before Tomlinson in that electronic messages could be shared amid multiple people within a limited framework. But until his invention in 1971 of the first network person-to-person email, there was no way to send something to a specific person at a specific address. Tomlinson wrote and sent the first email on the ARPANET system, a computer network that was created for the U.S. government that is considered a...

Raytheon threw its hat in the ring for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X jet trainer replacement program by announcing a partnership with Italy’s Finmeccanica group to offer a variant of the twin-engine Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master for the requirement. Finmeccanica had previously signed a letter of intent with General Dynamics to offer the variant, designated the T-100. At a February 22 press conference in Washington, D.C., Raytheon introduced a T-X industry team that includes Finmeccanica, engine manufacturer Honeywell and training system provider CAE. They will likely compete against three other teams. Earlier this month, Lockheed Martin confirmed that it will...

Tuesday's test of a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA was conducted in conjunction with Japan's ministry of defense and with the cooperation of the U.S. Navy. The missile launched from San Nicholas Island in the Point Mugu Sea Range. The flight tested ejection of the missile's kinetic warhead but did not involve launching a target missile or an actual interception attempt.

They’re not shooting precision-guided bullets — yet. But Raytheon may be the closest yet, with a tiny guided missile a soldier can launch from a rifle-mounted grenade launcher. Meet the Pike, a 17-inch-long, laser-guided munition that Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems is developing on its own dime in hopes the U.S. Army and perhaps other allied armies will buy it. The Pike and other small guided munitions Raytheon has developed in recent years meet a growing demand for precision, targeted strikes that leave minimal “collateral damage” — death or injury to civilians and property damage — in an era where enemies...