Lockheed Martin to upgrade computers in Marine Corps TPS-59 deployable air search radar

QUANTICO MARINE CORPS BASE, Va., 15 Oct. 2013. U.S. Marine Corps leaders needed upgraded computers for the AN/TPS-59A(V)3 military radar system. They found their solution from the Lockheed Martin Corp. Mission Systems and Training segment in Syracuse, N.Y.

Officials of the Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico Marine Corps base, Va., awarded a $7.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin on Friday for technical refresh and integration of TPS-59 radar computers.

Fielded in 1985, the AN/TPS-59A(V)3 is a long-range 3-D ground-based air surveillance radar. The system is for anti-air warfare to a maximum range of 300 nautical miles, and tactical ballistic missile surveillance to a range of 400 nautical miles.

The contract calls for Lockheed Martin to upgrade the radar system's obsolete Oracle Sun Netra T5220 carrier-grade ruggedized computer servers, the operations console computers, and re-integrate the system's proprietary software.

Lockheed Martin signal processing experts will replace the Oracle Sun Netra T5220 rugged server with the Oracle Sun Netra T4-1 carrier-grade server, which the Marine Corps will procure through the Marine Corps Common Hardware Suite (MCCHS) and provided to Lockheed Martin as government-furnished property.

The Netra SPARC T4-1 server is powered by the eight-core and four-core SPARC T4 processor with integrated on-chip cryptographic support for wire-speed encryption capabilities. This server offers 16 DIMM slots, which can support 256 gigabytes of memory, four hot-pluggable 2.5-inch drives plus DVD, integrated 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking, and built-in PCI Express Generation 2 expansion.

The server runs the Oracle Solaris operating system and virtualization software such as the Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle VM Server for SPARC technology.

The Marine Corps Common Hardware Suite contract, awarded in May 2012, calls for 10 companies to compete for contracts collectively worth as much as $775 million through 2017 to provide commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) rugged and commercial-grade laptop and tablet computers, computer workstations, and servers.

Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, is the designer, developer, and manufacturer of the AN/TPS-59A(V)3 radar system, developed the system's signal-processing software, and retains title to the technical data, Marine Corps officials point out. As such the company is the only source able to do this job.

For more information contact Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training online at www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mst, or Marine Corps Systems Command at www.marcorsyscom.marines.mil.