EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 16, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company has patented a breakthrough software tool called TopAct that enables space hardware manufacturers to use lighter and cheaper designs with more readily available parts, thus providing better value for the space customer.

Designers usually employ large design margin to compensate for uncertainties in the space environment. To ensure hardware survives damaging space radiation, aerospace manufacturers use increased shielding weight and specialty parts for more protection against radiation, driving up the cost of payloads and spacecraft.

TopAct provides a significantly more accurate environmental assessment, enabling lighter and less expensive designs. TopAct may save space customers millions of dollars by providing time-efficient, high fidelity models needed to optimize designs during the engineering phase of large and complex systems.

The TopAct engineering module leverages an adaptive modeling framework (AML) created by Ohio-based software company TechnoSoft, whose collaboration with Raytheon was made possible through the U.S. Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research Program.

"The combination of AML and TopAct will enable our engineers to search a broader set of radiation-hard product design configurations, rather than resorting to more shielding," said Dr. Steven Manson, Raytheon chief architect on the TopAct team.

Raytheon recognized the engineering team that developed TopAct with the company's 2005 "Excellence in Technology" award in February 2006.

Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.

Note to Editors:

TopAct automates the translation of the "as-designed" CAD (computer aided design) files of the spacecraft and its subsystems (down to the critical functional component level) into file formats utilized by standard radiation transport codes like MCNPx (Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport).

Together with space radiation environment information, an accurate assessment of the transported environment to the critical components is obtained. Implementation of TopAct will enable optimal spot shielding configurations, facilitate trades in hardness of components, and optimize placement, layout and packaging of subsystems for the radiation environment.

  Contact:
  Douglass Gore
  310.607.7305

SOURCE: Raytheon Company

CONTACT: Douglass Gore of Raytheon Company, +1-310-607-7305

Web site: http://www.raytheon.com/