TEWKSBURY, Mass., July 17, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company's Surface Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (SLAMRAAM) passed another significant program milestone by successfully completing System Critical Design Review (SCDR) last month.

"This review establishes that the SLAMRAAM system meets or exceeds our joint warfighters' requirements providing a reliable and critical air defense capability. As joint battlespace integrator, we are focused on program execution and on ensuring the needs of our joint warfighters are met," said Rick Yuse, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), vice president of Integrated Air Defense.

The successful SCDR conducted by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and presented by Team SLAMRAAM at Raytheon's Huntsville, Ala., facility, confirms SLAMRAAM's compliance with system technical requirements.

"SLAMRAAM's System Critical Design Review is the successful culmination of a challenging path that proves we are prepared to execute the integration and testing phase of the program," said Lt. Col. Walter Jones, U.S. Army product manager for SLAMRAAM.

This is the third successful milestone in two months for the SLAMRAAM program: The first Integrated Fire Control Shelter (IFCS) was delivered in May and a successful Build 2 software Critical Design Review was conducted at the end of April.

The Raytheon IDS SLAMRAAM system provides the warfighter an affordable, tailorable, state of the art air defense system that can defeat current and emerging cruise missile threats and a wide range of air breathing threats. SLAMRAAM also provides the air and missile defense system architecture designed to enable integration of other air defense systems to yield a system of systems air defense composite battalion.

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a strong international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. armed forces.

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.

  Contact:
  Guy Shields
  978.858.5246

SOURCE: Raytheon Company

CONTACT: Guy Shields of Raytheon Company, +1-978-858-5246

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