The US Army has awarded a $354 million contract to American defense firm Raytheon Technologies to produce additional Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radar prototypes.
LTAMDS is a 360-degree, active electronically scanned array radar capable of detecting and tracking ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, fixed-wing aircraft, and drones.
It can reportedly defeat advanced and next-generation threats such as hypersonic weapons that fly five times faster than the speed of sound.
Part of Raytheon’s new suite of advanced radars, the LTAMDS will eventually replace the US Army’s Patriot radars.
In 2018, Raytheon won a $384 million deal to deliver six LTAMDS representative units to the army.
Work for the new contract is expected to be completed by 2025.
‘A Transformational Radar’
Raytheon official Tom Laliberty explained that the LTAMDS was developed because current threats are flying farther, faster, and with improved accuracy.
Adversaries are also now coordinating attacks to use various threats simultaneously.
Laliberty stressed that the new radar could expand the battlespace with its ability to sense in all directions and detect threats at longer distances.
He described LTAMDS as a “transformational radar” that is a “leap ahead in technology and capability over currently deployed radars, providing greater capability against proliferating and stressful threats.”