2:42 p.m. LaBarge announces $9.7 million contract

From staff reports

news@joplinglobe.com

LaBarge announced Wednesday that it has received the initial award in a multiyear $9.7 million agreement from Raytheon Missile Systems. LaBarge will provide complex interconnect harnesses for the company’s new Miniature Air Launch Decoy program.

The work will take place at the company’s Joplin plant.

LaBarge said in a statement that it expects the contract to run through September 2011 with low-rate initial production beginning later this year and full-rate production scheduled to begin in the fall of 2010.

According to the statement by LaBarge, MALD is an air-launched programmable missile that duplicates combat flight profiles and signatures of U.S. and allied aircraft. In addition to protecting the aircraft, MALD offers air operations to neutralize, if not destroy, air defense systems that pose a threat to U.S. and allied pilots.

The missiles successfully completed government and Raytheon flight testing in January.

This is the fourth major deal LaBarge has reached with Raytheon this year.

In May, LaBarge secured a multiyear agreement with a total value of $4.5 million from Raytheon Missile Systems to provide cable assemblies for the upgraded Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Guided Missile Weapon System. That work is to be done at the company’s Berryville, Ark., plant.

That followed two contracts in February, one for $2.2 million to continue to provide cable harnesses for the Joint Standoff Weapon at Berryville and in Joplin. That followed a $9.2 million agreement for LaBarge to work on the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile, again at plants in Joplin and Berryville.

Operations

LaBarge, based in. St. Louis, also has operations in Huntsville, Ark.; Tulsa, Okla.; Pittsburg and Houston.