The original Sea Sparrow was an expedient design intended to provide short-range defensive fire in a system that could be deployed as rapidly as possible.

In the years after its introduction, it was upgraded to follow improvements being made in the air-to-air Sparrow models used by the US Navy and US Air Force.

In the air-to-air role, however, this was passed over in favor of the AIM-120 AMRAAM, which offered much higher performance from a smaller and lighter missile.

Compared to the Sea Sparrow, ESSM has a larger, more powerful rocket motor — developed by Orbital ATK in cooperation with Nammo Raufoss — for increased range and agility, as well as upgraded aerodynamics using strakes and skid-to-turn.

In addition, ESSM takes advantage of the latest missile guidance technology, with different versions for Aegis/AN/SPY-1, Sewaco/Active Phased Array Radar (APAR), and traditional target illumination all-the-way.

Block 2 features enhanced communications systems that allow mid-course guidance correction, making the missiles easy to network into the Navy's emerging Cooperative Engagement Capability.

[16] In October 2003, at the USN Pacific Missile Range Facility near Hawaii, Australian frigate HMAS Warramunga conducted a successful firing of an ESSM.

[17][18] In November 2003, approximately 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the Azores, the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) frigate HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën conducted a live fire test of a single ESSM.

[20] Further live firings were performed by the RNLN frigate HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën in March 2005, again in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 180 nautical miles (330 km) west of the Azores.

The first "kill" by the RIM-162D from a United States Navy carrier's Mk 29 launcher was achieved during a training exercise by USS John C. Stennis on 7 October 2008.

[22] On 30 August 2015, during the annual 'Co-operation Afloat Readiness and Training' ('CARAT') exercise, the ESSM was fired from the Royal Thai Navy Naresuan-class guided-missile frigate HTMS Naresuan and achieved a direct hit on a BQM-74E drone missile launched from the USN amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown.

[24] In 2018, the ESSM Block 2 passed its first live fire test, successfully intercepting a BQM-74E target drone using its active guidance seeker-head.

[25] Source: US Navy—Fact File: Evolved Seasparrow Missile[26] ESSM Consortium Members: Foreign Military Sales (FMS):