PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY, Hawaii -- The Navy
successfully conducted a demonstration of the surface-to-air STANDARD Missile-6
Block I (SM-6 Blk I) from USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) off the Hawaiian coast
Jan. 18.
The John Paul Jones-launched strike demonstrated and
validated that the legacy Anti-Surface Warfare capability of the AEGIS Weapon
System Mk7 and STANDARD Missile-2 have been successfully carried forward into
the latest AEGIS Combat System Baseline and SM-6.
"With this test, we demonstrated that AEGIS Baseline
9 equipped with the SM-6 provides an offensive over-the-horizon engagement
capability for the Fleet to counter the growing Anti-Access/Area Denial
capabilities of our adversaries," said Rear Adm. Jon Hill, Program
Executive Officer for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS). "Based on the
success of this test, we also showed the versatility and potential of the AEGIS
Combat System equipped with SM-6 provides for our surface Navy in new missions,
which is focused on 'distributed lethality' and a shift to delivering offensive
capability."
This capability upgrade was designed to deliver the most
efficient and effective use of significant investments made in surface force
lethality over the past two decades, as it used the latest in SM-6 and AEGIS
Baseline 9 equipment and computer program technology to provide needed
capabilities to counter evolving threats.
The SM-6 is the sixth variant of the STANDARD Missile
family developed for the Navy with Raytheon Missile Systems. The SM-6 program
has completed development and achieved Initial Operational Capability in
November 2013. It is currently in the follow-on test and evaluation phase, with
a projected full-operational capability declaration date in late 2017. AEGIS
Baseline 9 is installed on Air Defense Cruisers and IAMD Destroyers, including
DDG 53.
PEO IWS is an affiliated Program Executive Office of the
Naval Sea Systems Command. PEO IWS is
responsible for spearheading surface ship and submarine combat technologies and
systems, and for implementing Navy enterprise solutions across ship platforms.
to supporting the nation's maritime strategy.
For more news from Naval Sea Systems Command, visit
www.navy.mil/local/navsea/
- NAVSEA -