Rockwell Gets $161.7-Million Contract on MX : Anaheim Division to Join Westinghouse for Rail-Based Plan
Rockwell International’s Anaheim electronics division won a $161.7-million Pentagon contract Wednesday to design and build the launch control system for the rail-mobile version of the MX intercontinental nuclear missile.
The contract was one of two awarded Wednesday by the Defense Department as it starts full-scale development of the emergency defense railroad network, called the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison program.
Rockwell’s Autonetics Electronics Systems division in Anaheim was awarded the contract to develop and test the mobile missile’s launch control and security systems, which will be placed on separate railroad cars.
The federal agency also awarded Westinghouse Electric Corp.’s Marine division in Sunnyvale a $167-million contract to design, develop and test the missile launching car.
Completed by 1992
The contracts for the rail program are to be completed by 1992, the Pentagon said.
Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said earlier this year that he favors the rail-mobile version of the huge ballistic missile because it would be difficult for the Soviets to target and hit. Congress, however, has not yet approved the rail-car basing plan.
Rockwell’s electronics division, which has been working to get the contract for about a year, will design and produce the launch-control-system car and the security car at new facilities it is buying in San Bernardino, just south of Norton Air Force Base.
The division had tried to find facilities in Orange County near its Anaheim plant, but no site could be found quickly enough. John McLuckey, president of the division, pointed out that many of his employees live closer to San Bernardino than Anaheim.
McLuckey said about 200 employees will be needed on the program by the end of the year, and the work force will grow to a peak of 500 to 700 employees in 1990, the middle of the four-year contract.
The contract means Rockwell will not have to lay off about 150 Anaheim employees whose jobs were in jeopardy after the Air Force recently cut a $484-million contract for production of small ICBM missiles back to $114 million, McLuckey said.
The MX contract, which calls for five launch control cars and four security cars, could lead to further contracts giving Rockwell $1 billion in business during the expected 10-year life of the Peacekeeper program, said Donald R. Beall, the company’s chairman and chief executive.
The Air Force has 38 of the 10-warhead missiles based in silos at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, near Cheyenne, Wyo. Congress has approved placing an additional 12 MX missiles in silos by the end of this year.
The Pentagon has been pressing for an additional 50 missiles to be placed on rail cars that would be kept on military bases, or garrisons, in peacetime and deployed over commercial railroad tracks if war were imminent.
Carlucci said in congressional testimony earlier this year that if Congress does not authorize the 50 additional missiles, he would favor taking some or all of the 50 silo-based missiles out of the ground and putting them on rail cars.
Aboard 25 Trains
The “rail garrison” system will consist of 50 missiles to be based aboard 25 trains, each carrying two missiles, according to a Pentagon statement.
Each train would include two locomotives and six cars--two missile launchers with missiles inside, one launch control car, two security cars and a maintenance car. Other dummy cars would be added to the train to make it look like an ordinary freight train.
Boeing won a contract last fall to make the locomotives and maintenance cars.
The Democrat-controlled Congress supports development of a mobile intercontinental missile but is divided over whether to proceed with the rail-based MX or the smaller, single-warhead Midgetman, which would travel the roads on specially hardened trucks.
Both Currently Alive
Both programs are currently alive, with the Midgetman more popular in the House and the rail MX the preferred option in the Senate.
In the fiscal 1989 budget now before Congress, the House set aside $600 million for Midgetman and $100 million for rail-based MX, while the Senate earmarked $700 million for rail garrison and only $50 million for Midgetman.
Carlucci had requested $793 million for the MX rail-basing plan. Although he informed Congress that he wanted to kill the Midgetman program, he requested $200 million to keep the program alive until the next President could review the issue.
