By Emelie Rutherford
The Navy has awarded contracts to three competing companies to develop prototypes for next-generation radars that will improve the service’s ability to thwart anti-ship and ballistic missiles.
Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC], and Raytheon [RTN] each received a 24-month contract on Sept. 30 for the technology-demonstration phase of the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) S-band and radar suite controller (RSC). The Navy hopes to eventually have a scalable radar suite, with S-band (AMDR-S) and X-band (AMDR-X) radars and the RSC, that could accommodate requirements for multiple platforms. The AMDR-X is not part of the Navy’s competition now, and will be provided as government-furnished equipment, according to a Lockheed Martin official.
The radar suite is intended to help multiple Navy ship classes–including the next-generation surface combatant and any potential future cruiser–detect and fight ballistic missiles, while also fending off advanced air threats.
The three companies that received the technology-demonstration contracts are expected to complete their work by September 2012. The deals are valued at $119 million for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors in Moorestown, N.J.; $120 million for Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Electronic Systems in Linthicum Heights, Md.; and $112 million for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, Sudbury, Mass.
They will each develop demonstrators, intended to show the critical technologies are mature, leading up to the program’s preliminary design review.
Rich Buck, Lockheed Martin’s AMDR program executive, told reporters his company and the Navy already have made a “significant investment” the last several years in research and development to reduce the risk of critical technologies for digital-array radars.
The Navy in the technology-demonstration contract is looking for large-aperture structures that are bigger than the 12-foot Aegis SPY-1 radars in the fleet today.
“The thrust of the (technology-development) TD effort as laid out by the Navy is de-risking those four technology areas” related to the large-aperture structures as well as transmit/receive modules, distributed-receiver exciters, and digital-beam forming, Buck said.
He described the nascent AMDR suite effort as a “major acquisition for the Navy” that is categorized as a major acquisition-category 1 program.
An engineering-and-manufacturing-development phase is expected to follow after the 24-month contracts end. Beyond that, Buck said he doesn’t have information on the Navy’s production plans.