US buying bomb designed by Raytheon Tucson unit
Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems has won a competition to make the next-generation small guided bomb for the U.S. Air Force - worth $450 million initially and potentially billions of dollars over the program’s life.
The Air Force announced Monday that Raytheon’s GBU-53/B design for the Small Diameter Bomb II program was picked over a competing design by a team made up of Boeing Co. - prime contractor for the first-generation Small Diameter Bomb - and Lockheed Martin.
The new-program award is welcome news for Raytheon Missile Systems, Southern Arizona’s largest employer, which shed about 225 mainly engineering jobs last spring after three major developmental programs fell to Pentagon budget cuts.
The Small Diameter Bomb II (called SDB II) is an air-launched, precision-strike glide bomb with flip-out wings that is able to hit moving and fixed targets from long range, even in adverse weather conditions.
It meets a key requirement for smaller precision munitions that can be stowed internally aboard the Air Force’s new jet fighters, the F-22 and F-35, preserving their “stealth” designs to avoid radar detection.
The $450 million contract calls for Raytheon to begin engineering manufacturing development, with deliveries expected to begin in 2013.