New ‘Star Wars’ Contract Goes to McDonnell : Firm to Build Missile at Huntington Beach Plant

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics has won a contract to design and build at its Huntington Beach plant a new interceptor missile to capture and detonate incoming enemy warheads in the upper atmosphere, a key part of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative defense system.

Although the new “Star Wars” contract, which the Pentagon awarded Monday, will be settled in ongoing negotiations, it is expected to be among the largest that the Huntington Beach operation has received in recent years, a company official said Tuesday.

The Pentagon has declined to estimate the contract’s value, but it already has told Congress that it wants to spend about $421 million on the project over the next two years alone.

The Pentagon said this week that it expected the negotiations to be held over the next several weeks.

A McDonnell Douglas spokesman said the company was unsure how many new workers it would need to carry out the project at its sprawling 5,200-employee Huntington Beach compound.

Initially, the official said, the project would consist primarily of design work and probably would require the hiring of some additional engineers.

However, he cautioned that the additional hiring might not be extensive during the design phase because McDonnell Douglas already has been working on a similar missile project and could transfer those employees to the new “Star Wars” project.

The official said a major employment boost would come if the company wins a subsequent contract for large-scale manufacture of the missiles.

Known as the High Endoatmospheric Defense Interceptor (HEDI), the project calls for creation of a sophisticated, ground-launched missile to destroy enemy warheads that penetrate higher layers of an orbiting defense system.

As currently envisioned, the HEDI missile would maneuver close to an enemy warhead and destroy it by detonating its own non-nuclear warhead.

The current plans calls for HEDI to operate at altitudes below 300,000 feet.

Another system, under a contract awarded last month to Lockheed Missiles in Sunnyvale, Calif., would defend higher altitudes. Terms of that contract were not revealed.

The Pentagon said McDonnell Douglas was selected in competitive bidding over Martin Marietta Aerospace of Orlando, Fla.

Once a definitive contract is negotiated, McDonnell Douglas will be responsible for awarding what the Pentagon called “several major subcontracts.”

The contract calls for McDonnell Douglas to test an experimental model of the new missile in the final two years of the contract.

The Pentagon said the tests would be “conducted in compliance with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and all other U.S. treaty obligations.”