Navy asks RTX Raytheon to continue support for discontinued Dual-Band Radar as successor EASR comes online
WASHINGTON – Shipboard radar experts at RTX Corp. will continue supporting an expensive surface-search radar system for large U.S. Navy warships until a suitable replacement comes online, under terms of a $19.1 million order announced this month.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking the RTX Raytheon segment in Tewksbury, Mass., for design agent engineering efforts in support of the Dual Band Radar (DBR) program.
The Navy's DBR dual-band radar combines the benefits of S-band and X-band radar capabilities for a range of environments, while its open architecture software design enables automatic operation with minimal human intervention.
S-band radar
The S-band VSR radar arrays, built by Lockheed Martin, are integrated with Raytheon's SPY-3 X-band Multi-Function Radar to form the advanced DBR, which was tested in 2009 at the Navy's Engineering Test Center at Wallops Island, Va.
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Initial installations of the DBR were aboard the Navy's Zumwalt-class land-attack destroyer and Ford-class aircraft carriers. By 2016 the DBR was discontinued after being installed only on the aircraft Carrier USS Gerald R. Ford because the DBR was considered too expensive and perhaps more radar than the carrier needed.
By 2016 Navy officials decided to replace the DBR aboard aircraft carriers and other large surface warships with the more-economical Raytheon Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR).
Radar to be discontinued
EASR will be installed on the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy -- the second ship of the Ford class -- to replace the discontinued DBR. The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD 29), commissioned in September, will be the first ship that will take EASR to sea.
In the meantime, however, Navy officials still must maintain the few DBR systems that are operational, hence this order to Raytheon for engineering services.
On this order Raytheon will do the work in Tewksbury and Marlborough, Mass; Norfolk and Chesapeake, Va.; San Diego; and Portsmouth, R.I., and should be finished by June 2022. For more information contact Raytheon Missiles & Defense online at www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.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.
