Raytheon Wins $375M Contract For Miniature Self-Defense Missile For Jets
U.S. Air Force jets will defend themselves with a pint-sized new weapon designed to take out anti-aircraft missiles before they get too close. Raytheon has been awarded the contract with delivery of the first missile for flight testing due in 2023.
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s munitions directorate launched the Miniature Self-Defense Missile (MSDM) program in 2015. Boeing and Lockheed Martin submitted proposals at earlier stages of the project, but Raytheon, with a long history of missile development, won out.
Currently incoming missiles can be lured away from their target with flares, chaff, or infra-red lasers, but rather than decoying, the MSDM is designed to destroy. The radar guided MDSM is a kinetic weapon, homing in on an incoming missile and taking it out by direct impact rather than an explosive warhead. Lockheed had previously looked at using an active millimeter wave radar developed for the PAC-3 Patriot missile. Raytheon has not commented on its own design.
The advantage of a miniature missile is that large numbers can be carried; it will be intercepting missiles close to the launch aircraft so it does not require long range. The MSDM will be about a meter long, making it a fraction of the size of the Air Force’s smallest existing air-to-air missile, the three-meter AIM-9X Sidewinder, which also happens to be a Raytheon product. One proposal has three MSDM replacing a single AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile (yes, also Raytheon).
“The MSDM will support miniaturized weapon capabilities for air superiority by enabling close-in platform self-defense and penetration into contested A2/AD environment with little to no impact to payload capacity,” according to a DoD press release.
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