Description: Medium-long range shipboard surface-to-air missile.
Background: Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) is the world's premier surface-to-air air defense weapon. As an integral part of the Aegis Weapon System (AWS) aboard Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, SM-2 can be launched from the MK 41 Vertical Launcher System (VLS) or MK 26 Guided Missile Launcher System. Its primary mission is fleet area air defense and ship self defense, but it also has demonstrated an extended area air defense projection capability and it has a secondary anti-surface ship mission. SM-2s use tail controls and a solid fuel rocket motor for propulsion and maneuverability, and, in addition, extended range missiles have a booster with thrust vector controls. All are guided by inertial navigation and mid-course commands from AWS, and semi-active radar or an IR sensor for terminal homing.
SM-2 succeeds Terrier and Tartar, which were developed in the 1950s and 60s, and SM-1, which will be phased out of U.S. service in 2003. Both medium and extended range versions have been developed. SM-2 Blocks III, IIIA, IIIB, and IV are in service with the U.S. Navy; these and other variants of Standard Missile are also in service with thirteen allied navies..
In more than a thousand firings over the past two decades, SM-2 consistently has demonstrated effective performance against targets from surface ships to helicopters, manned aircraft, and cruise missiles, from very low to very high altitudes and from stationary to supersonic speeds, under a variety of weather conditions, and across a spectrum of stressing electronic countermeasures environments. On January 24, 1997, the Navy successfully demonstrated a Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) capability when a ballistic missile target was shot from the sky for the first time using a new version of the Standard missile family. Although the Navy Area TBMD program has since been canceled, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program (formerly Navy Theater Wide) currently under test uses the same extended range propulsion stack as the basis for the SM-3. The SM-3 has successfully intercepted a ballistic missile targets twice.
Point of Contact:
Public Affairs Office
Naval Sea Systems Command (OOD)
Washington, D.C. 20362
(202) 692-6920
Primary Function: Surface to air missile
Contractor: Raytheon and others
Power plant: Dual thrust, solid fuel rocket
Length: 15 feet, 6 inches (4.72 meters)
Weight: SM-2: 1,558 pounds (708 kg)
Diameter: 13.5 inches (34.3 cm)
Wing Span: 3 feet 6 inches (1.08 meters)
Range: 40-90 nautical miles (46-104 statute miles)
Guidance system: Semi-active radar homing (IR in Block IIIB)
Warhead: Radar and contact fuse, blast-fragment warhead
Date Deployed: 1981 (SM-2 MR)
Return to the Fact File Table of contents.