Arms manufacturer Raytheon is progressing in its effort to deliver a new shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile for the US Army.
The munitions supplier announced on 18 February that it successfully demonstrated all 10 subsystems associated with the Next-Generation Short Range Interceptor (NGSRI), which is competing to replace the army’s current FIM-92 Stinger anti-air missile, also produced by Raytheon.
Completed over the past several months, the evaluated components of the new NGSRI include the seeker head, flight rocket motor, portable command launch module and explosive warhead.
“These successful subsystem demonstrations are a crucial step in meeting the US Army’s range and performance requirements for this transformational short-range air defence capability,” says Tom Laliberty, president of land and air defence systems at Raytheon.
Other tests evaluated the NGSRI’s tracking and guidance systems, aerodynamic control and fuzing. The army has previously said it hopes to conduct a technology demonstration in fiscal year 2024 (which runs until 30 September 2025) and to begin producing of the new missile by 2027.
Laliberty says Raytheon remains confident in its ability to deliver an “affordable, low-risk, highly producible NGSRI solution”.
The company says its offering will deliver greatly improved capabilities as compared to Stinger. The recent NGSRI subsystem tests demonstrated increased flight range for the munition and a target acquisition range “far exceeding” that of the Stinger, it adds.
Rival Lockheed Martin is maturing a competing offer for the new missile system, with both firms receiving development contracts in 2023.
The US Army announced the Stinger replacement effort in 2022, just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That conflict reignited a long-dormant focus on air defence, which was effectively a non-issue during 20 years of counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East.
While effective in the short-range air defence role, the heat-seeking Stinger is approaching obsolescence, according to the army’s 2022 contract solicitation. A separate service life extension programme was launched to extend viability of FIM-92 stocks until a replacement could be developed and fielded.
Raytheon had stopped producing new Stingers in 2002 after the US Army concluded its planned orders. Despite its age, the Cold War-era missile proved effective against Russian rotorcraft and tactical aircraft in Ukraine, just as it famously did more than 30 years earlier in the hands of mujahideen fighters resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Washington has donated more than 3,000 Stingers to Ukraine, significantly depleting its own stocks in the process. Anticipating that likelihood, the Pentagon in 2022 placed a $624 million order for at least 1,300 new missiles – the first such order in two decades.
Restarting production of the aged weapon system proved challenging. Raytheon dusted off paper schematics and recalled retired engineers to restart Stinger production.
In 2024, Raytheon told FlightGlobal it was ramping up to achieve production capacity of 60 Stingers monthly. A separate $700 million contract from NATO headquarters in 2024 added 940 missiles to be split among Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
The restarted Stinger assembly line is now expected to run through at least 2029.
Raytheon claims Stingers have more than 270 confirmed intercepts against fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. The man-portable system is fielded by at least 19 countries and the four combat branches of the US military.
