Raytheon hunting for another US supplier of solid rocket motors

FARNBOROUGH, UK—Raytheon officials say they need a third U.S. supplier of solid rocket motors to keep up with missile orders. 

“We are strategically looking at how we can have a third domestic source of rocket motors,” Barbara Borgonovi, president of RTX’s Naval Power division, told reporters at the Farnborough air show on Tuesday. The company is evaluating “multiple suppliers” but it takes years because there are “robust qualification activities,” Borgonovi said. 

Currently, there are two main U.S. SRM producers: Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne, which was acquired by L3Harris. RTX also gets motors from foreign companies like Norwegian company Nammo, but some Pentagon programs require certain components to be made on U.S. soil. There are a few new entrants trying to break into the solid rocket motor business, such as Ursa Major and X-Bow Systems.

RTX uses the motors in its Patriot and NASAMS interceptor missiles, which the United States has been sending to Ukraine to help fend off barrages of Russian air attacks.

RTX needs more solid rocket motors to increase missile production, Tom Laliberty, president of RTX land and air defense systems, told reporters Monday.  

The company has faced problems getting motors from L3Harris subsidiary Aerojet. L3Harris has been able to meet their schedules on some programs, but on others they’re “continuing to struggle,” Laliberty said, so it’s a “mixed bag.”

RTX needs more motors to increase production of interceptors such as the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM, and the AIM-9X Sidewinder, which are traditional air-to-air weapons, but have been fired from Ukraine’s NASAMS launchers.

“We have never seen more demand” for AMRAAM than in the last year, Paul Ferraro, president of RTX air and space defense systems, said Tuesday.

By year’s end, Ferraro said, RTX will have doubled production of AMRAAM interceptors to 1,200 per year, and will maintain that pace “for the foreseeable future.”

And on Sidewinder, Borgonovi said production will increase from 1,400 units per year to 2,500 by 2025. 

The White House announced earlier this year that it would redirect to Ukraine some interceptor missiles ordered by other countries. These customers are primarily NATO countries and understand that Ukraine needs interceptors—and “most of them have been donating them themselves,” said Laliberty, the land and air defense systems chief. 

“First thing, the customer community is very understanding of what’s going on. That said, they would like to understand the scope of what’s going on, so we’re still working with the U.S. Air Force to have a better response to that,” he said. 

Laliberty said NATO had placed an order for 1,000 Patriot missiles earlier this year: an aggregated order for alliance members Germany, Romania, Netherlands, and Spain. NATO will determine the distribution of the missiles once they’re produced, and will go to the members with the “highest need,” he said.