Raytheon to build high-performance radar for THAAD missile-defense battery in $243.2 million order
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – Engineers at Raytheon Technologies Corp. will build an additional high-performance missile-defense radar system for the newest Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense battery under terms of a $243.2 million order announced Wednesday.
Officials of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., are asking the Raytheon Missiles & Defense segment in Woburn, Mass., to provide one Army/Navy Transportable Surveillance and Control Model 2 radars, better-known as the AN/TPY-2.
The AN/TPY-2 radar is designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming ballistic missiles, and uses its powerful radar and complex computer algorithms to discriminate between incoming armed missiles and decoys.
The radar will be for the eighth transportable THAAD missile battery, which could be moved quickly to global hot spots to defend against enemy ballistic missile threats.
The AN/TPY-2 radar can be deployed in two different modes. In forward-based mode, the radar is based near hostile territory, and acquires ballistic missiles in boost phase, and then tracks and discriminates the threat, and passes critical information required by decision makers to the Command and Control Battle Management network.
When the AN/TPY-2 radar is deployed in terminal mode, the radar detects, acquires, tracks, and discriminates between armed missiles and decoys in the terminal phase. The AN/TPY-2 operating in terminal-mode also leads the THAAD ballistic missile defense system by guiding THAAD missiles to their targets.
The AN/TPY-2 is a mobile X-band radar that helps defend against the more than 6,300 ballistic missiles of so-called rogue states and organizations that U.S. military experts say are not controlled by the U.S., NATO, China, or Russia.
The AN/TPY-2 is a high resolution, mobile, rapidly deployable X-band radar capable of providing long-range acquisition, precision track, and discrimination of short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, Raytheon officials say.
On this order Raytheon will do the work in Woburn, Mass., and should be finished by December 2024. For more information contact Raytheon Missiles & Defense online at www.rtx.com/our-company/our-businesses/rmd, or the Missile Defense Agency at www.mda.mil.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
