The Standard Missile-3 Block IIA developed by Raytheon and Mitsubishi is suffering severe cost growth, with the price tag for the new weapon ballooning nearly 60 percent over the last three years, an escalation that would force a traditional Pentagon big-ticket weapon system program to face summary termination. The Government Accountability Office, in its annual audit of the Ballistic Missile Defense System released last week, reveals the latest difficulty the Missile Defense Agency is having containing the costs in developing...
