Raytheon to upgrade venerable Tomahawk
missile for next-gen, anti-ship role
BY John Keller
PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. — Smart
munitions experts at the Raytheon
Co. are upgrading the venerable Tomahawk land-attack missile
(TLAM) for the anti-ship role with
a new sensor system to enable the
weapon to attack moving enemy
ships at sea.
Officials of the U.S. Naval Air
Systems Command at Patuxent
River Naval Air Station, Md.,
announced a $119 million order
to the Raytheon Missile Systems
segment in Tucson, Ariz., to integrate seeker suite technology and
processing capabilities into the
Tactical Tomahawk Block IV missile
in support of the Maritime Strike
Tomahawk Program.
The order provides for analysis,
trade studies, architecture, modeling, simulation development, evaluation, and prototyping activities for
an anti-ship missile version of the
Tomahawk, which will be called the
Maritime Strike Tomahawk variant.
Raytheon and Navy experts are
determining the most appropriate type of sensor for the Maritime
Strike Tomahawk. It could be a
multi-mode seeker with a mix of
passive and active sensors.
The upgrade of Tomahawk
land-attack missiles to maritime
strike variants also will involve warhead enhancements, and technology
to enable the new missiles to operate
in areas where GPS satellite navigation signals are jammed or otherwise
inoperative.
The first of the Maritime Attack
Tomahawk missiles should be ready
by the early 2020s. A supersonic version of the Tomahawk with a ramjet
to increase its speed to Mach 3 is
under consideration. On this order,
Raytheon will do the work in Tucson,
Ariz.; Dallas; Boulder, Colo.; and at
other locations, and should be finished by August 2019. Í
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at altitudes as high as 19.500
feet, and at speeds to 80 knots.
ScanEagle can carry a sensor
payload consisting of visible-light
camera, medium-wave infrared imager, or both integrated in
one turret. The UAV also has an
analog digitally encrypted video
data link, as well as encrypted or
unencrypted command-and-control data link. The UAV can be
launched autonomously and uses
a no-nets recovery system that
recovers with its wing tip on a
rope that hangs from a boom.
Athena laser weapon
shoots down five drones
Lockheed Martin has released
footage from tests with its laser
weapon system, revealing how
the Advanced Test High Energy
Asset (Athena) laser weapon
can deliver an invisible killing
blow to take down an enemy
drone. In the tests conducted
at New Mexico’s White Sands
Missile Range, the prototype
laser weapon shot down five
unmanned Outlaw aircraft. The
video shows the moment flames
burst from the tails of the flying
drones one by one before they
plummet toward the ground,
as the silent attack causes loss
of control and structural failure. Lockheed Martin and the
U.S. Army’s Space and Missile
Defense Command conducted
the tests using the 30-kilo-
watt-class Athena system. See
the video online at https://youtu.
be/hNsUtZm Wgdg. Í
Raytheon is working with the Navy to upgrade the venerable Tomahawk cruise missile to attack
moving targets and perhaps fill a next-generation, anti-ship missile need.