The Department of Defense awarded Raytheon (RTN) three separate defense contracts Wednesday. Valued at $265.4 million total, these contracts accounted for 66% of the total dollar value of defense contracts handed out by the Pentagon for the day.


Transporting AIM-9X Sidewinders aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Raytheon's largest contract of the day -- and indeed, the largest awarded to any defense contractor -- was a $223.1 million fixed-price-incentive-firm contract to supply the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and several allied nations with a total of 485 AIM-9X Block II "live" Production Lot 14 "Sidewinder" air-to-air missiles. Additionally, Raytheon will be supplying an assortment of Block II Captive Air Training Missiles, or CATMs, and Special Air Training Missiles (both used in training), All Up Round Containers (for the live missiles), and spare Advanced Optical Target Detectors, Tactical Guidance Units, and Captive Air Training Missile Guidance Units. Recipients of the missiles and equipment, which are to be delivered by December 2016, will include:

  • The U.S. Navy -- 161 live missiles, 59 containers, 47 CATMs, and 13 Special Air Training Missiles.
  • The U.S. Air Force -- 158 missiles, 60 containers, 55 CATMs, and 12 Special Air Training Missiles.
  • Turkey -- 117 missiles, 34 containers, and six Spare Tactical Guidance Units.
  • The Netherlands -- 28 missiles, 20 CATMs, 18 containers, and two each of Special Air Training Missiles, Spare Tactical Guidance Units, and Spare Captive Air Training Missile Guidance Units.
  • Singapore -- 20 missiles, eight containers, eight CATMs, five Spare Captive Air Training Missile Guidance Units, two Spare Tactical Guidance Units, and one Spare Advanced Optical Target Detector.
  • Morocco -- two CATMs, one container, and one Spare Advanced Optical Target Detector.
  • Kuwait -- one single Sidewinder missile.

In a separate contract, Raytheon was instructed to supply the Belgian military with 30 Sidewinders, 30 CATMs, 18 containers, eight Spare Captive Air Training Missile Guidance Units, two Spare Tactical Guidance Units, one Spare Advanced Optical Target Detector, and one lot of tooling for all of the above, also by December 2016. The primary focus of this second contract, however, a $28.2 million contract modification, concerned the delivery of 774 AIM-9X Production Inertial Measurement Units retrofits and upgrades to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force by December 2016.

Finally, Raytheon won a $14.1 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to perform engineering, maintenance, management, and support work on NATO SEASPARROW Surface Missile Systems for the U.S. Navy through June 2016.