
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency has awarded Raytheon [RTN] a $218.5-million contract for the production of more than two dozen of the latest Standard Missile-3 sea-based interceptors. An SM-3 block 1B launching in 2012. Photo by Raytheon. The contract comes three months after the MDA and Navy conducted the third successful test of the SM-3 block 1B interceptor. Those tests followed an unsuccessful test of the block 1B in its first attempt nearly two years ago. The contract modification announced…