US Navy to launch upgraded SM-6 Block IAU production to secure missile supply through the 2030s.

The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Missile and Defense $160.9 million to prepare the new SM-6 Block IAU configuration for production, with initial deliveries planned from fiscal year 2030. This transition-to-production action replaces aging electronic components in the missile's guidance section and target detection device without altering its airframe, engine, or warhead. The agreement supports the Navy's objective to build an industrial base capable of producing more than 500 complete missiles per year.

The undefinitized transition-to-production contract funds initial manufacturing processes and component updates for the SM-6 Block IAU while current Block IA production continues uninterrupted. This initiative establishes long-term manufacturing capacity for the Navy's upcoming procurement program covering fiscal years 2027 through 2037.

Related topic: US Navy awards Raytheon $24.4 billion to quadruple SM-6 missile production over five years

The SM-6 Block IAU is an upgraded Block IA that replaces aging electronic components in its guidance and target detection systems, so the U.S. Navy can keep producing the missile in large numbers through the 2030s without changing its existing combat capabilities. (Picture source: US Navy)

On September 24, 2026, the U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Missile and Defense $160.9 million to prepare the new SM-6 Block IAU (Block IA Upgrade) for production, with the first missiles planned for delivery from FY2030. Block IAU is an updated version of the SM-6 Block IA that replaces aging electronic components in the missile's guidance section and Target Detection Device, including the Guidance Section Electronics Unit, rather than improving its engine, airframe, warhead, speed, or range. The $160,892,270 award will pay for initial production work and for Raytheon to develop, test, and validate the manufacturing processes needed to build the upgraded configuration in quantity. This transition comes as the U.S. Navy prepares an SM-6 production program covering FY2027-FY2037 and wants industry capable of producing more than 500 complete missiles per year, compared with procurement of 108 Block IA missiles in FY2024, 103 in FY2025, and 139 planned for FY2026. The $160.9 million does not correspond to a disclosed number of missiles because this is an undefinitized transition-to-production action rather than a finalized order for a specific production batch.

The U.S. Navy will introduce the SM-6 Block IAU (Block IA Upgrade) without stopping the production of the current Block IA. Raytheon received a separate $333 million Block IA production contract announced on January 13, 2025, with manufacturing continuing through 2027, while IAU production preparations begin in FY2026 and the first upgraded missiles are due from FY2030. The next SM-6 procurement period is planned to cover 11 fiscal years from FY2027 through FY2037, potentially under another multiyear contract. A complete SM-6 normally reaches the U.S. Navy roughly 36 months after its production contract is awarded, so missiles required in 2030 depend on components, suppliers, and manufacturing capacity prepared several years earlier. In practice, Raytheon will have to manufacture Block IA missiles while qualifying the replacement IAU electronics on the same broader production network, allowing the U.S. Navy to change configurations without creating a gap in SM-6 deliveries.

The Block IAU remains physically and mechanically close to the current Block IA. The SM-6 is a two-stage missile measuring 6.6 m long and weighing 1,497 kg, with a 343 mm main body and a 533 mm booster section. The Mk 72 solid-fuel booster accelerates the missile immediately after launch, after which the Mk 104 dual-thrust solid rocket motor powers the main missile. Commonly published figures place the SM-6's speed at Mach 3 to Mach 3.5 and range at about 370 km, although the U.S. Navy does not disclose the maximum operational range of the current configurations. The Block IAU does not receive a larger motor, booster, airframe, or warhead, which is why it should not be interpreted as a longer-range SM-6. That role belongs to the separate Block IB program, which introduces a new and larger second-stage motor specifically to increase the missile's performance and range.

The Block IAU upgrade must preserve the way the SM-6 finds and intercepts targets, including targets that the launching warship cannot initially detect with its own radar. After launch, the Aegis combat system can send guidance updates to the missile during its flight toward the predicted interception point. Near the target, a SM-6 can switch to its own active radar seeker, derived from technology used by the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile, and independently search for and track the target; it can also use semi-active guidance with radar support from the ship. This active seeker is important because the warship does not have to illuminate the target continuously throughout every engagement. Through the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air, another aircraft or sensor can contribute the target track, allowing a ship to launch against a threat beyond its own radar horizon. In June 2014, this architecture was tested against subsonic targets with different radar signatures, ranges and altitudes, including an engagement that was then the longest-range SM-6 intercept ever conducted.

The electronics replacement also has to preserve the unusually broad range of missions already performed by the SM-6 Block IA. The SM-6 can engage fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and anti-ship cruise missiles, including low-flying sea-skimming weapons, but it can also attack ships beyond the horizon and intercept ballistic missiles during the final portion of their flight. The ballistic missile defense version is known as Dual II, while Dual II Software Upgrade integrates further software changes without representing a completely different missile. On March 30, 2023, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) fired two SM-6 Dual II Software Upgrade missiles against a medium-range ballistic missile target during FTM-31 Event 1a. On March 28, 2024, the Arleigh Burke-class USS Preble (DDG-88) used an SM-6 Dual II Block IA with newly qualified software against another medium-range ballistic missile target during FTM-32. The Block IAU does not add another mission to this list; its purpose is to replace aging electronics while retaining the air defense, anti-surface, and terminal ballistic missile defense functions already available with Block IA.

The central IAU component, the new Guidance Section Electronics Unit, is also being introduced into another Navy missile, the SM-2 Block IIIC. When installed with the associated changes in the SM-6 Block IA, the replacement electronics produce the Block IAU configuration; when incorporated into the SM-2 Block IIIC, they produce the SM-2 Block IIICU. This allows the U.S. Navy to use a common solution for obsolete guidance electronics across two Standard Missile families instead of funding completely separate replacements. The SM-2 Block IIIC itself already incorporates an active and semi-active radar seeker derived from the SM-6, while additional changes include new dorsal fins and a thrust-vectoring system that helps control the missile as it leaves the launcher. Raytheon received a related $344 million modernization contract in 2024, and the SM-2 Block IIICU initial operational testing is planned for FY2031. For the SM-6, limiting IAU primarily to the Guidance Section and Target Detection Device avoids simultaneously redesigning the missile's propulsion, airframe, and launcher interface.

The largest change surrounding the IAU is therefore not missile performance but the number of missiles the U.S. Navy wants industry to be capable of producing. A capacity exceeding 500 SM-6 All-Up-Rounds (AURs) per year would equal more than 41 missiles per month or nine per week, compared with earlier U.S. Navy procurement of 108 missiles in FY2024, 103 in FY2025 and 139 planned for FY2026. Reaching that rate requires more than additional final assembly: the U.S. Navy's requirement includes instrumentation kits, spares, containers, installation and checkout equipment, special tooling, qualified workers, production engineering and management of components that may become unavailable. The SM-6 production is already distributed among Tucson, Arizona; Huntsville, Alabama; Andover, Massachusetts; and Dine, New Mexico, so higher output also depends on suppliers and factories increasing production at compatible rates. With roughly 36 months between contract award and missile delivery, much of the capacity needed for 2030 must be established years before the first high-rate IAU deliveries.

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Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.