Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Raytheon wins $10M contract for railgun systems

By Eric Convey, Boston Business Journal

Raytheon Co. said Monday it was awarded $10 million by the Navy to develop power systems for railguns — high tech weapons found mostly in laboratory settings or Transformer movies that use electromagnetic pulses to propel projectiles at super-high speeds.

The systems do not require explosions or on-board propellants, being accelerated by magnetic induction, similar to a mag-lev train. Waltham-based Raytheon said in a news release that the weapon will be able to send projectiles 220 miles in “less than six minutes.”

The contract to a Tewksbury-based Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) division comes from the Naval Sea Systems Command. The contract is “to develop a multimission weapon system for use on naval warships to defend and attack with pinpoint accuracy,” Raytheon said in a prepared statement.

“This new system will dramatically change how our Navy defends itself and engages enemies while at sea,” Joe Biondi, vice president of Advanced Technology for Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business, said in a statement. “We have the expertise to design and build a solution that provides our warfighters with a decisive advantage over a multitude of current and emerging threats.”

This YouTube link will show a railgun in action.

Earlier this month, Raytheon BBN Technologies, a Cambridge subsidiary of Raytheon, landed a $5.5 million deal with the U.S. Army to build a two-way communication and translation system intended for mobile devices.  In July 2011, Raytheon won a $1.7 billion contract to upgrade Saudi Arabia’s Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, with the work expected to be performed at the company’s Integrated Air Defense Center in Andover, as well as in Saudi Arabia.