US Awards Raytheon $2 Billion Contract For Long Range Standoff Weapon System – Pentagon

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.

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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.