US Navy Completes Raytheon Laser-guided Maverick Testing

Naval and Marine avi­a­tors go 4‑for‑4 dur­ing tests

TUCSON, Ariz., Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — The U.S. Navy com­plet­ed devel­op­men­tal and oper­a­tional test­ing (DT/OT) of the newest vari­ant of the Raytheon Com­pa­ny (NYSE: RTN) laser-guid­ed Mav­er­ick mis­sile. This brings U.S. Sailors and Marines one step clos­er to con­duct­ing air­borne pre­ci­sion engage­ments of rapid­ly mov­ing tar­gets in urban environments.

“In numer­ous con­flicts, Mav­er­ick has proven its effec­tive­ness against ships, tanks, fast mov­ing vehi­cles and for­ti­fied per­son­nel,” said Har­ry Schulte, vice pres­i­dent of Raytheon Mis­sile Sys­tems’ Air War­fare Sys­tems prod­uct line. “With the com­ple­tion of DT/OT, Raytheon can begin pro­duc­ing and deliv­er­ing this high­ly accu­rate weapon to the U.S. and coali­tion warfighter.”

Dur­ing four DT/OT tests, Navy and Marine Corps avi­a­tors fired four AGM-65E2 laser-guid­ed Mav­er­ick mis­siles at mov­ing and sta­tion­ary tar­gets from F/A‑18C/D Hor­nets, F/A‑18E/F Super Hor­nets and AV-8B Har­ri­ers. Dur­ing one par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing test, an AGM-65E2 was fired from a Har­ri­er and accu­rate­ly guid­ed to a rapid­ly mov­ing tar­get via the laser des­ig­na­tor of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter.

About the Mav­er­ick Fam­i­ly of Mis­siles
The laser-guid­ed Mav­er­ick mis­sile is a direct-attack, air-to-ground pre­ci­sion muni­tion used exten­sive­ly by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in ongo­ing com­bat oper­a­tions. The AGM-65E2/L has an enhanced laser seek­er and new soft­ware that reduces the risk of col­lat­er­al damage.

Mav­er­ick is inte­grat­ed on 25 air­craft and in the inven­to­ry of 33 nations.
The AGM-65E2/L can use onboard, bud­dy and ground-based las­ing to des­ig­nate tar­gets.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Com­pa­ny, with 2010 sales of $25 bil­lion, is a tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion leader spe­cial­iz­ing in defense, home­land secu­ri­ty and oth­er gov­ern­ment mar­kets through­out the world. With a his­to­ry of inno­va­tion span­ning 89 years, Raytheon pro­vides state-of-the-art elec­tron­ics, mis­sion sys­tems inte­gra­tion and oth­er capa­bil­i­ties in the areas of sens­ing; effects; and com­mand, con­trol, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and intel­li­gence sys­tems, as well as a broad range of mis­sion sup­port ser­vices. With head­quar­ters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 peo­ple world­wide. For more about Raytheon, vis­it us at www.raytheon.com and fol­low us on Twit­ter at @raytheon.

AGM-65L is the des­ig­na­tion for the U.S. Air Force’s new Laser Mav­er­ick; AGM-65E2 is the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps des­ig­na­tion for their new laser-guid­ed Mav­er­ick missile.

Raytheon’s fam­i­ly of Mav­er­ick mis­siles pro­vides more than 250 jobs in Tuc­son, Ariz.; Gole­ta, Calif.; and Farm­ing­ton, N.M.

Raytheon’s sup­pli­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the Mav­er­ick pro­gram pro­vide employ­ment to hun­dreds of peo­ple across the U.S.

Major sup­pli­ers include Alliant Tech Sys­tems, Rock­et Cen­ter, W. Va.; Ana­log Mod­ules, Inc., Long­wood, Fla.; BAE Sys­tems, Lex­ing­ton, Mass.; EaglePich­er Tech­nolo­gies, Joplin, Mo.; ELCAN Opti­cal Tech­nolo­gies, Mid­land, Ontario, Cana­da; Ensign Bick­ford, Sims­bury, Conn.; Kaman Aero­space, Mid­dle­town, Conn.; MOOG, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah; MOOG, Inc., East Auro­ra, N.Y.; Primus Tech­nolo­gies, Williamsport, Pa.; Reynolds Sys­tems, Mid­dle­town, Calif.; and Woven Elec­tron­ics, Greenville, S.C.

Media Con­tact
Mike Nachshen
+1.520.794.4088
rmspr@raytheon.com

SOURCE Raytheon Company