Northrop Grumman studies air surveillance radar replacements for U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, amphibious ships

BALTIMORE, 9 Nov. 2013. U.S. Navy officials selected Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) to conduct the $6 million, 18-month Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) Study that explores replacement of SPS-48 and SPS-49 air surveillance radars currently on board U.S. Navy amphibious ships and aircraft carriers.

The study, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under its Integrated Topside program, will examine how an existing radar concept can be evolved to meet the EASR requirements.

"The goal of this study is to identify the modifications required for an existing radar to achieve the Navy's requirements. The study's risk reduction activities will demonstrate if the modifications can affordably meet those requirements," explains Todd Leavitt, director of Northrop Grumman's Maritime Sensors & Shipboard Integration business unit. "The use of AN/TPS-80 as a starting point proves the scalability and adaptability of the basic system architecture for adjacent mission requirements and enables the Navy to directly leverage more than $500 million in existing investment already made."

Northrop Grumman will leverage the capabilities, affordability, and maturity of the existing AN/TPS-80 Ground /Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) for the EASR study. The AN/TPS-80, the first ground-based multimission Active Electronically Scanned Array radar to be developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, is to replace five of six existing radar systems used by the U.S. Marine Corps. It is undergoing final government testing and is expected to enter production in early 2014.