WASHINGTON: The US Defense Department on Thursday announced the award of a $24.4 billion contract for Raytheon, an RTX unit, to accelerate production of SM-6 missiles as Washington works to replace the large amount of munitions expended during the Iran war.
The missiles are "critical anti-air and anti-surface warfare munition. This five-year agreement, with two additional option years, will drive faster production," the Pentagon said in a statement. The Navy said the multiyear contract is meant to provide a steady and reliable supply of the Standard Missile-6 interceptors, which can carry out both offensive strikes and missile defense missions.
The deal "provides the defense industry with the long-term predictability needed to expand workforce capacity and secure critical supply chains," the statement added.
The SM-6 award is the latest in a series of large munitions contracts the Pentagon has pursued this year to pressure contractors into ramping up output faster. It follows a $20.7 billion provisional multiyear deal for Raytheon's AMRAAM air-to-air missiles in late September and a $58.6 billion Patriot interceptor deal awarded to Lockheed Martin in July. The agreements are part of a broader push by the Trump administration to prioritize weapons production over shareholder returns.
However, industry executives have warned that Congress has not yet appropriated funding for the deals, meaning contractors may be unable to invest at scale in components and facilities until lawmakers act.
RTX has said it has invested heavily to keep up with rising demand, expanding its skilled workforce, strengthening partnerships across the defense industrial base and automating production. Raytheon says the SM-6 is the only combat-proven weapon that can perform anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare and ballistic missile defense, and it has been fired from a range of Navy ships as well as from land-based launchers.
President Donald Trump has so far brushed aside questions about the major toll taken on US munition supplies by the war against Iran, which the United States and Israel launched on February 28.
But the Defense Department's inspector general said last month that "the munitions expenditure on Operation Epic Fury has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply," using the official name for the operation against Iran.
And a September 15 report by the Congressional Budget Office cited the hit to missile defense supplies that "will leave the United States with a reduced inventory of interceptors for several years."
Tehran continues to exert control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz more than seven months after the initial US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic, while Washington is blockading Iran's ports.
Trump has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran by late November, the Wall Street Journal reported, which would set the stage for further Iranian strikes and more expenditures of American munitions.
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