Raytheon [RTN] March 30 was awarded a $769.4 million direct commercial sale contract to upgrade an undisclosed number of Patriot Air and Missile Defense System batteries to the latest Patriot Missile Defense System Solution configuration currently fielded.
“The upgrade enhances the Republic of Korea’s defenses and underscores the value of the 13-nation strong Patriot partnership which funded development of the modernization,” said Dan Crowley, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. “The Republic of Korea’s procurement is also an economic growth engine which will bring good jobs to Korea and preserve jobs in the U.S which would have gone overseas if a foreign system was selected.”
The upgrades include: open architecture, which ensures Patriot can operate on a variety of networks; the Modern Man Station, a new operator interface featuring touch screen technology and color graphical displays; and a radar digital processor, which improves target detection and identification, enhances surveillance, and supports the PAC-3 MSE missile.
“They’ve already started work; some work will be done in- country and some will be done in the United States,” said Michael Nachshen, a Raytheon spokesman.
In late 2014, South Korea awarded Raytheon a $160 million direct commercial sales contract to upgrade its missiles to the GEM-T configuration.
Raytheon is the prime contractor for the Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems, both domestically and internationally. It is also the system integrator for PAC-3 missiles, which are produced by Lockheed Martin [LMT]. Lockheed is the prime for the Patriot PAC-3 Missile Segment upgrade.