Electronics giant and defense manufacturing heavyweight Raytheon has broke with tradition and could be constructing a new plant in Alabama. The manufacturing plant will be a new facility for their missile division. For over 50 years, Raytheon Missile Systems have made Tucson, Arizona home. This does not mean that the Tucson location will close at all. Raytheon has a long history of excellence in engineering, especially in defense as they are one of the largest defense contractors in the world.
A new shop in Tucson just was not happening
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 facility in Tucson, due to numerous factors, wouldn’t be ready in time. From a short list of cities the business picked Huntsville, Alabama. The facility can have its ground breaking fairly soon, and it could be a $ 75 million, 70,000 square foot building. That’s bound to have some pretty high mortgage payments.
The laser like focus of Raytheon
The Star Wars project made Ronald Reagan a laughingstock, but Raytheon is making laser weapons work. 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. As outlined by CNET, a recent test on the California coast of the laser shot 4 out of 4 UAVs down. The laser causes the target to burn and fall right of the sky.
Longstanding tradition of excellence
Raytheon has a long history of being on the cutting edge of engineering, besides just defense projects. It was Raytheon (then the American Appliance Company) that first developed a gas filled vacuum tube that could power radios by plugging them to the wall, instead of a battery. (Some malcontents still insist vacuum tubes sound better than anything else.) Raytheon also invented radar for naval vessels and the microwave oven.
Read more on this topic here
news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10004204.html?tag=mncol
businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9H3GKRO0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon
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