TECH

Guided missiles: Arizona's most high-tech company

Ryan Randazzo
The Republic | azcentral.com
A Tactical Tomahawk, the next generation of Tomahawk cruise missile, explodes on target while executing a land-attack mission during a contractor test and evaluation in 2002.

Arizona's most high-tech company doesn't make computer chips or solar panels. It isn't in the business of personal gadgets such as iPhones. Most people likely would prefer never to interact with its products.

Many on the receiving end of Raytheon Missile Systems' merchandise don't live to tell about the experience.

Raytheon, with about 9,600 employees in Tucson, produces about 40 percent of the missiles used by the U.S. military, and about 30 percent of the global supply.

A key element of Raytheon's precision-guided munitions, as missiles are more accurately described, is the company's "seeker" technology. Seekers are the advanced lenses, infrared sensors and other high-tech components that allow weapons to home in on a target from miles away, fly to it or fly to where it is heading, and make a precise hit.

And it is the technology — optics, satellites and virtual reality — not necessarily firepower that will carry the company into the future.

"Anybody can build a rocket motor," said Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez, who works on the Raytheon business-development team. "Anybody can build a raw warhead. Not just anybody can build guidance systems to assure a positive kill. That is the biggest discriminator Raytheon brings to the fight: the front-end guidance."

A former fighter pilot, Rodriguez shot down two enemy aircraft using Raytheon missiles in the 1990s, one in Iraq and one in Yugoslavia. He credits both kills to superior technology.

Raytheon's business is aligned with national defense, but a conversation with the head of the missile business makes it apparent that Raytheon Co. is a tech company by nature, with products that push the boundaries of the nation's technical capabilities. Raytheon can't rely on war alone to create demand for its products. It must continually upgrade its products to stay ahead of competitors.

And Raytheon's fortunes matter to the Arizona economy. With 9,600 workers, it is the largest private employer in the Tucson area, and its impact ripples through the region.

Seekers are specialty

Raytheon-built Tomahawk Cruise Missiles can fly more than 1,000 miles, loiter and using GPS guidance strike targets with pinpoint accuracy.

With Raytheon seekers, a variety of missiles, bombs and ordnance built in Tucson are capable of pursuing, finding and destroying targets, even if the target is a Jeep in a convoy driving through a dust storm 45 miles away. Or a jet capable of electronically disrupting radar. Or a warhead flying in the furthest reaches of the atmosphere.

The rockets, motors and missile bodies used in the company's products often are built by other companies, such as Honeywell International Inc.

Those parts usually are delivered to Tucson, where the company assembles them with its in-house seekers and they become a Raytheon weapon.

"Sixty to 70 percent of one of our missiles is from an outside supplier," said Kim Ernzen, Raytheon Missile Systems' operations vice president.

Just because there is a demand for missiles does not automatically guarantee Raytheon revenue. It must compete against other companies both inside the U.S. and abroad to win supply contracts. And some other companies have similar capabilities.

For example, General Dynamics previously manufactured the Tomahawk missiles, which are now the purview of Raytheon, and Boeing makes a variety of "small-diameter" bombs comparable to Raytheon's.

The Air Force recently awarded to Raytheon a $31 million contract for small-diameter bomb IIs. Key to Raytheon's success is beating competitors in Defense Department bids to manufacture the weapons.

Scientist in charge

The company stands at the crossroads of national defense, politics and technology, but a conversation with the head of the missile business makes clear its high-tech focus.

Taylor W. Lawrence is president of the Raytheon Missile Systems and a vice president for the larger parent company, holding that position since 2008. He might be responsible for the finances of the company, but science is his passion.

Lawrence is no traditional businessman. His 1992 dissertation at Stanford University, where he earned a Ph.D. in applied physics, is titled "The search for anyon superconductivity: Do high-temperature superconductors exhibit a spontaneous T-violating circular dichroism?"

In an interview this spring, Lawrence offered a routine rundown of the company's economic benefits to southern Arizona. But his eyes lit up as he launched into a discussion of new "hypersonic" weapons designed to travel the globe in high orbit, saving fuel by "skipping" off the Earth's atmosphere.

"It's about going farther, faster, higher," he said. "You always want to innovate and disrupt yourself."

The company has been developing advanced capabilities in its seekers and increasing the precision of everything from artillery shells to smart bombs. This technology allows fighters to hit targets on the first try, with minimal collateral damage, rather than level an entire area with multiple rounds.

Throughout Raytheon, employees discuss weapons-making in dry terms. Rather than referring to blowing people up, they refer to "prosecuting threats." But Lawrence directly addresses that the company makes money on the need for weapons.

"The world, unfortunately, is not becoming a safer place," Lawrence said. "The world needs our products. Our mission is to make the world a safer place."

The company supplies weapons mainly to the U.S., although it is approved to sell select weapons to 49 other countries.

"There is a lot of need for the capabilities we build," he said.

Other important outlets for the company include U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as Japan, which is enthusiastically purchasing equipment from Raytheon's Standard Missile program.

Lawrence said international sales are important for the company while U.S. spending on defense projects has leveled off.

When Congress enacted the Bipartisan Budget Act in 2013, triggering sequestration measures, the Defense Department budget was reduced by nearly 8 percent. It has remained essentially unchanged at $496 billion through 2015, putting the company in a holding pattern.

Lawrence believes the U.S. eventually will increase spending on the company's products.

"Our U.S. customers are going through budget issues," he said. "We believe it is at the bottom of this particular cycle. We want to be ready when it returns."

Missile interceptors

ESSM provides self-defense battlespace and firepower against high-speed, highly maneuverable anti-ship missiles in the naval environment.

If any projects at Raytheon embody the company's high-tech focus, they are the missile-defense systems.

Should North Korea or another nation ever launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at the U.S., it likely would be a Raytheon product that shoots it out of the sky.

This feat could be accomplished with an "exoatmospheric kill vehicle." The EKV is a high-speed and precise craft designed to be carried into space by a large rocket. There, it separates from the rocket, homes in on its target and, ideally, destroys an incoming missile without an explosive, simply by crashing into the target at high speed.

In the analogy Raytheon executives use, the system is like a bullet shooting another bullet out of the sky. Experts will note, however, that ballistic missiles fly much faster than bullets.

Raytheon is a subcontractor that provided the EKVs as part of the Department of Defense's Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, which aims to destroy incoming missiles before they make a final descent.

Twenty-six interceptors are assigned to Fort Greely, Alaska, An additional 14 interceptors will be deployed to the base southeast of Fairbanks by 2017. Four interceptors are assigned to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Raytheon provided all of the EKVs for the interceptors as a subcontractor to Boeing.

The system's last test, in June 2014, was a success. The U.S. launched an intercontinental missile from the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The kill vehicle crashed into the missile over the Pacific Ocean.

Critics of the program have voiced concern over its imperfect record of test flights, in which nine of 16 target missiles have been destroyed since 1999.

Earlier this year, the Brookings Institution stated that it would be more cost-effective for the U.S. to invest in offensive-weapons technology rather than the missile-defense program because of those technical challenges.

"For the foreseeable future, offense wins the offense-defense relationship," wrote Steven Pifer, director of the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "Offensive ballistic missile technology is far more mature than that of missile defense, and cost considerations favor the offense."

Because of the spotty record, it might take more than one interceptor to thwart a ballistic attack on the U.S., but officials at the the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency say they are confident in the GMD system.

The Missile Defense Agency also intends to refine the kill-vehicle technology as more interceptors are deployed.

"We are very confident the GMD element can meet near-term threats from countries like Iran and North Korea and will be able to provide improved capability against future threats as we progress with the redesigned EKV program now underway," said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the agency. "Combatant commanders have stated time and again that they have a high level of confidence in the GMD element."

Another Raytheon product, the Standard Missile, has similar ballistic missile targeting capabilities but can be launched from land or sea. Raytheon has delivered more than 200 of the Standard Missile 3 to the U.S. and Japan.

'10 steps ahead'

An F-35A Lightning II joint strike fighter completes the first in-flight launch of a Raytheon-built advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-120, in 2013 over the Point Mugu Sea test range in California. Raytheon produces 40 percent of the missiles used by the U.S. military.

Raytheon's advancements are well-known to the members of the U.S. military who have faced an enemy in combat.

Rodriguez experienced that on March 24, 1999, during the initial night of aerial attacks by NATO forces against the Yugoslavian military in Kosovo.

Flying above 35,000 feet at a speed in excess of Mach 1.5, Rodriguez located the Russian-made MiG fighter jet with the radar aboard his F-15 well before the enemy would have been able to take a shot at the NATO forces given the technology on his aircraft.

"The element of surprise was there, the element of completing the ID matrix was there," Rodriguez said. "It was a matter of completing a few more steps."

When the Yugoslavian jet realized Rodriguez had fired an "advanced, medium range, air-to-air" missile at him, he tried to thwart it with electronic avoidance aimed at the radar system and with aluminum chaff dispersed in the air to deny the radar.

"My radar was running right through that," he said. "The information being handed off (from radar) was high quality."

Raytheon's AMRAAM is an "active missile," taking information from the airplane's radar, from radar on other coalition aircraft in the battlefield, and using those radar pictures to home in on the enemy. Once the missile is close enough to the target, it no longer requires the airplane's radar to track the target. This allows the pilot to begin taking defensive maneuvers or targeting the next enemy while the missile independently tracks down its prey.

"As the missile got closer, it had no problem finding the threat amid the ground clutter, and we were able to take that guy out," he said.

Shot from more than 25 nautical miles away, the kill remains the longest to date with the AMRAAM missile, he said.

"That was at the same time the Yugoslav ground-based defenses, their strategic SAMs (surface to air missiles), began to wake up and realize we were in their backyard and look for shot solutions," he said. "By taking a longer-range shot, I was able to maneuver my airplane away from the Yugoslav missile sites."

The onboard self-protection system assisting Rodriguez that night on his F-15 also was a Raytheon product.

"In the end, it is all about delivering to our U.S. war fighter and our coalition partners … an unfair advantage no matter what spectrum of conflict they are engaged in," he said.

The U.S. has approved Raytheon to sell AMRAAMs to 36 international customers.

"That missile has forced tactics to be developed so that all the players are listening to the common air picture," Rodriguez said. "The technology Raytheon has put into AMRAAM has revolutionized the art of war, especially air war."

Rodriguez had similar advantages over Iraqi pilots flying MiG jets in 1991 during the Operation Desert Storm invasion.

During one flight, he and other U.S. pilots noticed on their radar an Iraqi jet more than 60 nautical miles away trying to evade them, flying at a low altitude to throw off radar.

"I was at higher altitude than where he was coming from, so I had longer kinematic legs for my missile than he would," Rodriguez said.

The Raytheon Sparrow missile he fired was able to see through that radar clutter, he said.

"The processor speed enables us to look through what the enemy is doing to camouflage or deceive," he said.

The technology Ratheon uses across its portfolio of weapons is all essentially the same and has improved exponentially since that conflict, Rodriguez said.

"In some cases (the missile is assessing) not what the threat has done, but what the threat is trying to do, and we are not one and not two, but 10 steps ahead of the threat," he said.

Assembling the Tomahawk

A Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile launches from the guided missile destroyer USS Stethem during a live-warhead test. The missile traveled 760 nautical miles to successfully impact it’s intended target on San Clemente Island, part of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) test range in Southern California. The Tactical Tomahawk has the capability to reprogram the missile while in-flight to strike any of 15 preprogrammed alternate targets, or redirect the missile to any Global Positioning System (GPS) target coordinates.

While fighter pilots and soldiers may be familiar with the range of Raytheon products, the weapon most familiar to the general public is likely the Tomahawk missile.

If the AMRAAM has changed the rules of aerial combat, the Tomahawk has changed the calculation for combat in general.

Tomahawk missiles can be fired from submarines or ships and strike targets more than 1,000 miles away, even if they are moving ships. They have been fired more than 2,000 times.

Most recently, they have been deployed against ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. The initial barrage in September launched 47 Tomahawks, and has been followed by a steady run of airstrikes.

President Barack Obama in November submitted a $5.6 billion amendment to the 2015 budget to provide additional resources for the operation, which includes $54.3 million for missiles, including Tomahawks.

Most of the work on Tomahawks is done inside a meticulous workspace at the University of Arizona Technology Park, a short distance from the main Raytheon complex.

Workstations are arranged with each tool in a precise location as workers build the 18-foot long missiles, which sell for about $1.6 million each, according to the 2015 U.S. defense budget.

Like all Raytheon products, the more purchased in a given year, the lower the production costs and the lower the individual price tag for each weapon.

The program is on a minimum order now, which means just four weapons a week are produced in the facility. That can be ramped up as needed, but it's unclear whether the Navy will forgo the Tomahawk in the next few years in favor of newer weapons.

Raytheon experts continue to add capabilities to the existing weapons.

Tomahawks saw their wartime debut in 1991, when they were fired against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.

The more than 200 Tomahawks fired in the early days of that conflict hammered communications and other infrastructure, with military analysts saying the weapons were crucial in limiting U.S. casualties and defeating the Iraqi army.

The ability to hit targets deep within enemy territory without soldiers on the ground or risking aircraft on bombing missions was a game changer that Raytheon officials are proud of. Company officials say it is an unfair advantage that keeps U.S. soldiers out of harm's way.

The Tomahawk factory floor includes a large "Wall of Heroes" with photos of children, spouses or other relatives of Raytheon employees serving in the armed forces.

Raytheon officials said the fact that many employees have loved ones serving in the military is an incentive to make sure every weapon assembled at the facility is made precisely to specifications to ensure it works properly. The lives of those friends and family members depicted on the board are relying on them.

"That is a constant reminder of what we do and why we do it," said Mike Jarrett, vice president of the Air Warfare Systems product line, gesturing toward the wall of pictures.

Hughes Aircraft legacy

The 1951 decision by Hughes Aircraft Co. to build the facility in Tucson that is now Raytheon Missile Systems has had huge implications on the regional economy.

In 1992, Hughes formed a missile-systems subsidiary by purchasing the missile-production business of General Dynamics Corp., merging it with its missile group, and basing it at its Tucson facility.

Hughes soon decided to close the former General Dynamics missile-production operations in Pomona, Calif., and San Diego and move them to Tucson, bringing about 2,000 jobs to southern Arizona.

Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Mass., bought the Hughes defense business in 1997. The Tucson missile operations remain a subsidiary of the larger company, which also has divisions that focus on integrated defense systems, intelligence and information services, and space and airborne systems.

Raytheon's workforce is the 14th-largest in the state, and its importance to the economy was apparent this year when dignitaries from across the state showed up to celebrate the relocation of a road near the campus.

"Raytheon makes a contribution to our nation's defense that is hard to calculate," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., during the event.

Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Gov. Doug Ducey also spoke.

"What you don't see are the soldiers, sailors and Marines who are going to be better equipped," McSally said at the event.

McSally fired Raytheon products from an A-10 Warthog during her service in the Air Force.

The facility is limited by industrial rules regarding the "net explosive weight" of its products, which includes not only the explosive potential of the weapons but the fuel inside them as well.

Higher NEW ratings require larger buffers from other developments or roads. Moving the Hughes Access Road south of Raytheon's campus will allow the company to increase the net explosive weight of the products made in Tucson, should it win additional business and want to increase production at the site.

If the company didn't face such restrictions regarding its buffer zone, or the road had been moved by 2010, Raytheon could have built its Standard Missile facility in Tucson. Instead the company built that new facility in Huntsville, Ala.

Arizona leaders don't want to see Raytheon expanding outside Arizona again if they can prevent it.

Push for new technology

Challenges facing the company include continually upgrading its weapons' capabilities to stay ahead of competitors and branching into new businesses to support its missile mainstay.

Among the threats listed in the company annual report is "the possibility ... that our competitors might develop new technology or offerings that might cause our existing technology and offerings to become obsolete."

To help design the company's missiles, Raytheon has turned to virtual reality, creating an environment in which engineers can take a three-dimensional tour through a missile to determine where new components might be moved or added. The Immersive Design Center brings engineers and suppliers inside the missile, helping them visualize the complex components in 3D.

Ernzen, the Missile Systems' operations vice president, said, "We apply this to all our products across all life cycles."

The design center also was used to design a new factory layout and allow workers to simulate the tasks they would perform in assembling missiles in the production facility. That helped the company maximize the efficiency of the layout and head off major flaws.

Raytheon also is becoming more efficient in a variety of ways. From 3D printing circuits rather than assembling complex wiring harnesses, to retrofitting robots used in the automobile industry to complete some of the more precise and complicated tasks involved in building a missile, Raytheon keeps an intense focus on reducing costs, Ernzen said.

The company also is diversifying. With a variety of companies, including Google, investing in the satellite business, Ernzen said the market presents an opportunity to augment the missile business.

Raytheon won a 2012 contract for $1.5 million with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build three "small, disposable" satellites for the agency.

But missiles will remain the company focus, officials said.

Lawrence, president of Raytheon Missile Systems, said, "There still are a lot of targets out there. The challenge is making these things affordably. We are giving more capability at a given price point."

On the beat

Ryan Randazzo covers energy, technology, mining, defense and aerospace.

How to reach him:

ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com

Phone: 602-444-4331

Twitter: @utilityreporter

Raytheon Missile Systems

– 9,600 employees in Tucson; about half of them are engineers.

– Its Tucson facility covers 300 acres south of Tucson International Airport, plus additional facilities at a nearby tech park.

– Hughes Aircraft Co. built the first Tucson facility in 1951. Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Mass., bought the Hughes defense business in 1997.

– Raytheon's Missile Systems unit is based in Tucson.

– It provides about 40 percent of the missiles purchased by the U.S. Defense Department.

A sales uptick in 2014

In 2014, Raytheon Missile Systems increased bookings by $1.1 billion. Among its deals:

– $893 million for tube-launched, optically tracked, wireless-guided (TOW) missiles for the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines and international customers.

– $706 million for Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and international customers.

– $634 million for Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) for the U.S. Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency.

– $510 million for Phalanx weapon systems for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army and international customers.

– $359 million for AIM-9X Sidewinder short range air-to-air missiles for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and international customers.

– $321 million for Paveway for the U.S. Air Force and international customers.

– $316 million for Tomahawk for the U.S. Navy and international customers.

– $307 million for Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) for the U.S. Navy.

– $216 million for the production of Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) contract for the Missile Defense Agency.

– $211 million for the production of ESSM for the U.S. Navy and international customers.

– $150 million for Maverick missiles for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and international customers.

– $149 million for the Iron Dome Tamir Co-Production program for an international customer.

– $123 million for Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) for the U.S. Navy and international customers.

– $119 million for production of Javelin missiles for the U.S. Army.

– $117 million for Laser Guided Rockets for an international customer.

– $104 million for Miniature Air-Launch Decoy (MALD) for the U.S. Air Force.

– $80 million for the Excalibur program for the U.S. Army.

– $140 million on a classified program.

Source: Raytheon annual report to shareholders