1,000th ESSM Block 2 Delivered as Raytheon Targets 65 Missiles a Month

The U.S. Navy has taken delivery of the 1,000th RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 2, a milestone marked at Raytheon’s missile plant in Camden, Arkansas, on October 28 and announced by the service’s NATO SeaSparrow Program office on November 2. The program delivered its 500th Block 2 round in June 2025, meaning that cumulative output has doubled in roughly 16 months, with the missiles built for all 12 nations of the NATO SeaSparrow Consortium rather than for the U.S. Navy alone. How the 1,000 rounds have been divided among the member navies has not been disclosed. The milestone is one of the clearest signs yet that Western production of naval interceptors, which has drawn growing concern alongside the depletion of land based interceptor stocks, is finally beginning to respond to wartime demand.

Captain John Bowman, manager of the program office designated PMX-312, called the delivery a significant achievement for the consortium, stating: “This milestone demonstrates the enduring value of international cooperation and a resilient industrial base.” Raytheon’s vice president for naval shipboard missiles, Misty Holmes, said on November 3 that the company delivered over 350 missiles in 2025 and now builds roughly 45 a month, with a target of 65 a month over the next three years, an increase of more than 40 percent supported by capital investment made earlier in 2026, with the current production contract running until early 2027. The consortium, established in 1968 and among NATO’s longest running cooperative weapons programs, groups the United States with Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Türkiye, which cooperate on the missile’s development, production and support.

The importance of the ESSM has grown with the scale of missile and drone attacks on warships in the Red Sea since late 2023. Vice Admiral Brendan McLane, commander of U.S. Naval Surface Forces, stated in January 2025 that over roughly 15 months of operations in the region U.S. warships had fired around 120 SM-2 and 80 SM-6 missiles, a combined 20 ESSM and SM-3 interceptors and 160 rounds from their five-inch guns. The figures highlighted how heavily the fleet had relied on the Standard Missile family, despite the ESSM’s ability to be quad-packed four to a cell in the Mark 41 Vertical Launching System, which lets a destroyer carry four of them in the space taken by a single SM-2. The ESSM was far from new to combat off Yemen, with the destroyer USS Mason having fired one alongside Standard Missiles against anti-ship cruise missiles launched from Ansarullah controlled territory in October 2016.

The Block 2 entered initial operational capability in 2021 after a development program that began in 2015, and differs from its predecessor above all in its dual mode seeker, which adds an active X-band radar to the older semi-active mode. Earlier ESSMs depended on the launching ship’s fire control radars to illuminate the target until impact, limiting how many threats a single ship could engage at once, while the Block 2 can home on its own in the terminal phase and leave those radars free for other targets. The missile also carries an improved warhead and an S-band and X-band data link, while the ESSM family as a whole arms vertical launch cells on destroyers and frigates as well as the eight-round NATO SeaSparrow launchers fitted to U.S. aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.