USAF expects to award Raytheon LRSO contract this week

The Air Force is poised to award prime contractor Raytheon an engineering and manufacturing development contract for its new cruise missile in the coming days, a service spokeswoman said Friday.

The award for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon is expected to be by Wednesday, spokeswoman Leah Bryant wrote in an email.

The move, which would usher in the next developmental phase for the LRSO, comes after a May 25 Defense Acquisition Board milestone B review, Bryant said.

As of Friday, Brant said the Acquisition Decision Memorandum, which documents the milestone review process and is needed to formally proceed into the EMD phase, was "in coordination and awaiting final approval."

The service's fiscal year 2022 budget request included $609 million for the program, which is $251 million more than what officials projected they would need in last fiscal year's budget request. Last year, $385 million was appropriated -- almost 20% less than the $474 million the service requested for FY-21 to develop the missile.

The congressional reduction came after the Air Force in April 2020 abruptly opted to cancel its contract with Lockheed Martin, which had been maturing designs for the program alongside Raytheon, leaving Raytheon as the sole company working to continue its proposal.

The program has benefited from a sped-up development schedule; the service hadn't anticipated it would reach milestone B until the second quarter of fiscal year 2022. But the condensed timeline, which resulted from Lockheed's removal from the process, allowed the Air Force to quicken its pace, Inside Defense previously reported.