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Raytheon Co., the world's largest missile maker, and Northrop Grumman Corp., the third-largest U.S. defense contractor, have won contracts to test systems for protecting airports from shoulder-fired missiles.

Raytheon's technology, dubbed Vigilant Eagle, is under development at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson.

The Homeland Security Department awards, totaling $7.4 million over the next 18 months, are to assess new technologies to defend against missiles fired at passenger airplanes, department spokes-man Christopher Kelly said Friday. A third award went to L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.

The contracts broaden a 3-year-old effort to find ways to protect jets from attacks like one in Kenya in 2002, in which terrorists launched two shoulder-fired missiles in a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet. Aircraft-mounted defenses tested since 2003 have been too expensive, and the new awards fund tests of ground-based systems including lasers and microwaves.

"Ground-based systems have the advantage that they can be more reliable," said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based policy-research group. "It is easier to be on the ground where you can have an infinite power supply. Aircraft are only vulnerable below a certain altitude, when they are taking off and landing. For most airports you can place them on towers where you can cover landing and takeoff routes."

There are 398 commercial airfields in the U.S., and equipping them all with systems would cost "several billions of dollars," Goure said. Money could be saved by installing them at the top 70 airports, which get 80 percent of the air traffic, he said.

Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon's Vigilant Eagle Airport Protection System uses sensors mounted on cell-phone towers or buildings to detect an attack, and to direct a beam of electromagnetic energy to disrupt the missile and deflect it from the aircraft. Raytheon's award is valued at $4.1 million.

In May, Raytheon said it had adapted an existing air-defense control system, the fire distribution center of the Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, to the Vigilant Eagle system.

Raytheon Missile Systems is Southern Arizona's biggest private employer, with more than 10,000 workers in Tucson.

Los Angeles-based Northrop's Skyguard system is derived from the Tactical High Energy Laser, which has shot down more than 48 targets in U.S. Army tests over the past six years. Northrop's system would actually destroy incoming rockets, rather than misdirect them. Its award was for $1.9 million.

L-3, based in New York, will test an aircraft-mounted decoy-dispensing system under its $1.4 million award. The system is made by the Avisys unit it acquired in June 2004.

Since 2003, the U.S. has spent $239 million testing airborne infrared jamming technology made by Northrop and London-based BAE Systems Plc. The third phase of those tests began in August and will last 18 months.

The Homeland Security Department said in a July report that there is a "moderate to high" risk that those airborne prototypes may harm airlines' business models, which are dependent on high reliability and low costs. The devices cost an estimated $365 per flight to operate and maintain, exceeding the target of $300, the report said.

Shares of Raytheon fell 12 cents Friday to close at $50.33 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Northrop dropped 21 cents to $68.80, while L-3 added 56 cents to $77.66.