WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy shipboard air-defense experts are asking RTX Corp. to make upgrades to enable the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) to take-on future generations of enemy hypersonic anti-ship missiles.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington announced a $43.2 million order in September to the RTX Raytheon segment in Tucson, Ariz., for the redesign of the steering control section of the SM-6 missile.
Raytheon is redesigning the SM-6's steering control section to increase the missile's speed and range, and potentially enhance its capability to engage enemy hypersonic missiles.
This redesign first was planned around 2018, and included enhancements to enhance the SM-6's rocket motor and control surfaces. The updated steering control section is to improve the missile's maneuverability and performance.
Missile upgrades
Overall upgrades to the SM-6 seek to improve the missile's anti-air, ballistic missile defense, and secondary anti-ship roles by giving the missile faster interception speeds and improved terminal engagement capabilities.
The SM-6, also called the RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), is deployed on Navy surface warships like cruisers and destroyers to provide air defense against enemy fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), land-attack anti-ship cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles in their terminal phases over sea and land, Raytheon officials say.
The SM-6 uses the legacy Standard Missile airframe and engine, and adds the advanced signal processing and guidance control capabilities of the Raytheon AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).
Long-range defense
The SM-6 is a key component in the U.S. Navy's Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA), which helps provide Navy shipboard forces with over-the-horizon air-defense capabilities. It also can destroy nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles in their terminal phases.
The missile features semi-active and active homing, and launches from the MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) canister aboard ship. The SM-6 is a two-stage missile with a booster stage and a second flight stage.
Navy crews inertial guidance to target the missile, and then use the missile's active radar seeker to guide the missile to its target. Other options are using semi-active radar homing all the way; or an over-the-horizon shot with Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), which blends radar from several different ships.
Anti-ship missiles
The SM-6 can intercept targets like incoming ballistic missiles at very-high-altitudes, or in low-altitude mode against low fliers like sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. Against ballistic missiles it can discriminate targets using its dual-mode seeker, with the semi-active seeker relying on a ship-based illuminator to highlight the target, and the active seeker having the missile itself send out an electromagnetic signal.
The missile's active seeker can detect a land-based cruise missile amid ground clutter, even from behind a mountain. The Navy is adding the Global Positioning System (GPS) to the SM-6 so it can strike stationary land targets if needed. The missile also is being modified as an anti-ship weapon.
On this order Raytheon will do the work in Tucson, Ariz., and should be finished by November 2027. For more information contact RTX Raytheon online at www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/sea/sm-6-missile.
