As the U.S. war continues with Iran and with the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, Moog Inc. — which is based here in Western New York — has a major role as a key defense contractor for missile defense and other forms of defense against attack drones.
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Iran fired ballistic missiles earlier this week in an attack against U.S. troops at Middle East bases, and their defense system brought comments from President Trump, who also called for retaliation.
Trump told reporters in the White House: "We had five rockets going 8,500 miles an hour, and all five rockets were knocked down to the ground."
There were similar comments from U.S. Central Command as they reported what they said were the successful interceptions of those Iranian missiles by other U.S.-fired interceptor missiles.
Patriot Missile batteries and other elements of THAAD — or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — systems were designed to launch into the sky and kill those incoming enemy missles as kind of a defensive shield system.
Those anti-ballistic missiles are steered to their fast moving targets by movable fins which are in turn powered by electro actuator devices built by Moog at it Salt Lake City plant.
They were discussed Friday this morning in a Moog conference call on third quarter earnings with business analysts who pointed out their control systems are involved.
Moog CEO and president Pat Roche emphasized that their actuator systems are used on the missiles.
And now with reported concerns that the United States is depleting its inventory of those missiles and even growing demand from Ukraine to head off Russian missiles, there is a new $56 billion, seven-year Pentagon contract with Lockheed Martin to ramp up production from the current 600 to up to 2,000 missiles each year.
Roche says Moog is taking steps to meet demand for their prime customer, Lockheed: "We are preparing to step up appropriately for that demand. As I said earlier, that demand hasn't yet flowed down to us in terms of orders, which are reflected in the backlog. So, we are in very active dicussions because, as you know, this is an urgent requirement of the U.S. government."
He added: "We expect the missile programs to be about $275 million in fiscal 2026. That's around over 20 percenrt growth year over year, and that is not reflecting the significanrt step up that is coming through those seven-year agreements, as yet the impact of those seven year agreements have not yet flowed down to our backlog."
There is also a push to build a cheaper version of the Patriot missile, which each costs $4 million. Moog is involved in that effort as well.
"The low-cost program, much of the steering controls required are similar between the low-cost missile that's being proposed and existing missiles. So we believe we have an opportunity," Roche said.
Moog is also building new defense systems mounted on armored vehicles to protect against attack drones, which are being used against the United States and Ukraine. Other European countries like the United Kingdom are eventually expected to place orders for them as well.
All this could mean more hiring, expansion, and more profits for the Elma-based company, which Friday announced record third quarter earnings with over $1.1 billion in sales and a $152 million profit.
