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U.S. Plans: Agency Considering Hybrid Missile for Navy Theater Defense The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is considering whether to develop a Raytheon Standard missile with hit-to-kill technology as a replacement for the aborted Navy Area missile defense system, Defense Daily reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 4). The Navy Area system would have used the Raytheon Standard Missile-2 Block IVA weapon. Some U.S. Navy and industry officials have said, however, that the SM-2 Block IVA should be abandoned for the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 missile, which has a kinetic kill warhead that could destroy an incoming missile upon impact. The SM-2 Block IVA has a warhead with a proximity fuse. What could result is a hybrid of the SM-2 Block IVA and the PAC-3, other officials said. “We’re doing all the things we can do to pull costs out of the Standard missile,” said an industry official. “A lot of people think hit-to-kill is the way to go and we’re looking at that. We will look at PAC-3 and other ways to do that.” U.S. Defense Department officials cited cost overruns as one of the reasons for canceling the Navy Area plan. Raytheon, however, has attempted to convince the MDA that missile development costs did not account for all the increases. In a letter last month to Pentagon acquisition chief Pete Aldridge, Raytheon Chairman Daniel Burnham said his company was “only responsible for 26 percent of the total development costs.” The slow pace of the system’s development also contributed to cost increases, Burnham said. He added that a September 2001 report showed that the total cost of the Navy Area plan was less than that of other missile defense systems. Other industry officials, however, said Raytheon was more responsible for the cost increases in the Navy Area plan than it might have wanted to admit. “The Navy Area increase in costs were attributable to the missiles — that’s where the problem was,” an industry official said. “The average production unit cost was up 75 percent and that’s where the problem was. The numbers don’t lie — let’s call a spade a spade” (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, Jan. 17).
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