TUCSON, Ariz.–Raytheon [RTN] expects the SM-6 will be capable of providing terminal ballistic missile defense by the end of 2015 or early 2016, according to a company’s program director.
The SM-6 is already in low-rate production, deployed on Navy ships and recently engaged in successful tests for over-the-horizon air defense, but it is also intended to engage ballistic missile in the terminal flight phase.
The Block 1 version of the SM-6 will receive the dual-mode capability with the ones rolling off the production line in either the end of 2015 or early 2016, Mike Campisi, the senior program director for the SM-6, said in a recent interview at Raytheon Missile Systems here.
The subsequent Block 1A version will also have both capabilities and will be upgraded for enhanced performance with its guidance systems.
Folllow-on Operational Test and Evaluation for the SM-6 is expected to run through second quarter of fiscal 2016.
The Navy, along with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin [LMT], which provides the Aegis combat system for operating the SM-6 and other ship-based missiles, conducted tests in June and August of the missile, which will be part of the service’s Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) mission.
The August test saw the SM-6 intercept a subsonic, low- altitude target over land. The other nine tests would test the missile against other combinations of threats and environments. The tests in June were the first off a destroyer with the latest version of Aegis, where the SM-6s in three tests engaged subsonic low-altitude drones and cruise missiles. All hit the targets.