Defense contractor and electronics heavyweight extraordinaire Raytheon will build a new manufacturing and testing plant in Alabama. A project of the missile division of Raytheon will occupy the building. Raytheon Missile Systems has been headquartered in Tucson, Arizona for decades. The main facility in Tucson will not be closing. Raytheon is one of the largest defense contractors in the world, and it has a long history of innovations outside of the defense industry as well.
Couldn’t build a new plant in Tucson
From an article in Business Week, Raytheon needed a new facility to design, build, and test a new ship defense system and a ship borne interceptor missile. (That’s for shooting other missiles out of the sky.) A new state-of-the-art facility wouldn’t be feasible in Tucson because of zoning, schedule and other needs that weren’t able to be met. They picked Huntsville, Ala., from a small list of cities. The groundbreaking for the $ 75 million, 70,000 foot facility will be soon. The mortgage payments have got to be killer.
The laser like focus of Raytheon
The Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, may are a bust for Ronald Reagan, but laser weapons are panning out for Raytheon. The company has designed a laser defense system that can very easily shoot down an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and will likely soon tackle test aircraft. According to CNET, a recent test on the California coast of the laser shot 4 out of 4 UAVs down. The high intensity beam causes the targets to burst into flames in moments and drop from the sky.
Longstanding tradition of excellence
Raytheon was a business with a history of innovation and engineering excellence before they built their first missile. When the business was nevertheless the American Appliance Company, they invented a vacuum tube that could run a radio off of wall power, instead of a battery, before the invention of the transistor. (You will find still people that rant and rave about how great tube sound is.) Raytheon also invented radar for naval vessels and the microwave oven.
Discover more details on this topic
news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10004204.html?tag=mncol
businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9H3GKRO0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon
