- Raytheon received a $335 million contract modification on April 24, 2026, for Standard Missile-6 Tactical All-Up Round production across seven locations through May 2030.
- Raytheon has invested nearly $900 million over three years to expand SM-6 production capacity at Tucson and Huntsville to meet what the company describes as unprecedented demand.
The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon a $335 million contract modification on April 24, 2026, to keep Standard Missile-6 production running.
Raytheon Co., headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, received the modification to contract N00024-25-C-5409, exercising options and providing funding for the manufacturing, assembly, test, and delivery of Standard Missile-6 Tactical All-Up Rounds. Work is expected to be completed by May 30, 2030, with production distributed across multiple sites: Tucson carries 35 percent of the work, matched by East Camden, Arkansas at another 35 percent, with smaller shares going to Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom at 8 percent, Elma, New York at 3 percent, Middletown, Ohio at 3 percent, Anniston, Alabama at 2 percent, and various other locations accounting for the remaining 13 percent. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., serves as the contracting activity. Funding comes from two fiscal year sources — $295,978,952 in fiscal 2025 weapons procurement funds and $39,131,070 in fiscal 2026 weapons procurement funds, both obligated at award and neither set to expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Standard Missile-6 is among the most operationally versatile weapons in the U.S. Navy’s surface warfare inventory. Originally developed as a long-range anti-air warfare missile, the SM-6 has been expanded through software and hardware updates into a multi-mission platform capable of engaging aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles in their terminal phase, and surface targets — making it one of the few weapons systems that contributes meaningfully to multiple layers of a ship’s defensive and offensive capability simultaneously. Its active radar seeker, which allows the missile to pursue targets independently after launch without requiring continuous illumination from the launching ship, gives surface combatants the ability to engage multiple threats across wider areas than earlier semi-active homing missiles permitted. The result is a weapon that the Navy has integrated into its layered air defense architecture as a critical component — not an optional enhancement.
Phil Jasper, President of Raytheon, used the contract announcement to describe both the system’s importance and the production challenge the company is managing: “Standard Missile-6 is a critical, combat-proven system that provides a vital layer of protection for ships and sailors — a capability that has never been more critical than it is today. Contracts of this nature are an essential step in sustaining production, and we remain focused on enhancing our operations to meet unprecedented demand. To support this growth, Raytheon has invested nearly $900 million over the last three years to expand capacity at key sites, including Tucson, Arizona, and Huntsville, Alabama. These investments paired with the clear demand signal will help ensure we deliver these critical munitions at the speed of the mission.”
SM-6 missiles have been expended in operational use at rates that peacetime production planning did not anticipate, driven by the missile defense missions the Navy has been conducting in the Red Sea and surrounding waters in response to Houthi attacks on commercial and naval shipping. Each engagement consumes inventory that takes years to replace at current production rates, creating a tension between operational consumption and stockpile sustainment that the Navy has been working to address through exactly these kinds of multi-year production contracts.
The $900 million in capacity investment Raytheon has made over the past three years across Tucson and Huntsville represents the industrial side of that response — a significant commitment of company capital to expand the physical production infrastructure that determines how many missiles can be built per year. Production capacity for precision guided munitions is not infinitely elastic. It depends on specialized manufacturing equipment, skilled workforce, supply chain depth, and facilities that take years to build and cannot be conjured quickly in response to a crisis. The investments Raytheon describes are the long-lead actions that will determine production rates in 2027, 2028, and beyond — which is why the company is making them now, in parallel with receiving the contracts that fund current production.
The geographic distribution of SM-6 production across seven confirmed locations reflects the complex supply chain behind what appears from the outside to be a single missile. The active radar seeker, the rocket motor, the warhead, the guidance electronics, and the airframe all represent distinct manufacturing challenges that different facilities specialize in. Wolverhampton’s 8 percent share reflects the international supply chain dimension — British manufacturing contributing to a weapon that protects U.S. and allied naval forces — while the distribution across multiple U.S. states creates an industrial base that is both geographically resilient and politically supported across multiple congressional districts.
The completion date of May 2030 establishes a four-year production horizon that gives Raytheon the planning stability to sustain the workforce and supply chain investments the contract requires. Multi-year, firm-fixed-price contracts at this scale are the procurement mechanism that allows defense industry to make the capital investments that capacity expansion demands — the certainty of a funded order over a defined period justifies the factory expansion, workforce development, and supply chain commitments that could not be justified against an uncertain future order.