The NATO Seasparrow Project Office is seeking next-generation variant in the long-running series of interceptors amid modern air and missile threats from Russia and China,
Finnish Minister of Defence Jussi Niinistö authorised, on 21 February 2019, the country’s Defence Forces Logistics Command to procure Raytheon’s Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles (ESSM) as part of the surface-to-air missile system (ITO20) for the Pohjanmaa-class corvettes of the Squadron 2020 project.