Raytheon Missiles and Defense has won a $2 billion US Air Force contract to produce a Long-Range Standoff new nuclear-armed cruise missile which is projected to have a range of 1,500 miles by the end of this decade, the Department of Defense said.
“Raytheon Missiles and Defense [of] Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded an approximately $2 billion …contract for the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) Weapon System,” the Defense Department said in a press release on Thursday.
The objective at the end of the EMD phase is to demonstrate full production readiness, the release said.
Work on the project will be performed in Tucson, Arizona and is expected to be completed in February 2027, the release added.
The LRSO is a nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missile to develop the current AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missile and is expected to be carried on multiple aircraft, including the B52 and B-21 bombers, according to published reports.
The Defense Department has said the LRSO program seeks to develop a weapon that can penetrate and survive integrated air defense systems and prosecute strategic targets that will reach initial operational capability before the retirement of the ALCM cruise missiles around 2030.
