Raytheon's Tucson operation gets $1.2B to keep making air-combat missile

Raytheon will keep making its advanced medium-range air combat missile in Tucson for at least four years under a $1.2 billion contract modification to produce missiles for the U.S. and allies, including Ukraine.

The contract for Raytheon’s Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile includes missiles, telemetry systems, spare parts and engineering work, with all the work to be performed in Tucson by the end of 2028, according to a Defense Department contract notice.

Besides the U.S. Navy and Air Force, the contract includes foreign military sales to Bahrain, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, with the foreign governments supplying about half the funding, the Pentagon said.

The latest contract is the biggest AMRAAM deal ever, topping a similar four-year, $1.15 billion production contract awarded to Raytheon in June 2023.

The number of new missiles to be built under the latest order was not disclosed. At about $1 million per AMRAAM, the contract would work out to more than 1,000 missiles, but that doesn’t include extra parts and related equipment and engineering work.

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“Air dominance is critical to staying ahead of increasingly advanced adversary threats,” said Paul Ferraro, president of Air and Space Defense Systems at Raytheon. “AMRAAM is the most advanced, combat-proven missile system, and this contract ensures we continue to provide our warfighters with the cutting-edge technology they need.”

More than 40 U.S. allies use the AMRAAM, an all-weather, radar-guided missile with a reported operational range of about 60 to nearly 100 miles, depending on the version.

U.S. forces mount the latest and most capable version of the AMRAAM, the AIM-120D, while other nations use the shorter-range AIM-120C.

Last November, Sweden signed a deal to buy up to $605 million worth of AMRAAMs and in June, the U.S. State Department approved a potential sale of hundreds AMRAAMs to Denmark and Norway.

The most recent contract the sixth production lot of AMRAAMs developed under a major upgrade program known as Form, Fit, Function Refresh or F3R, Raytheon said.