WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force can start testing a brand new medium-range sensor next month for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System because of several recently awarded government contracts, RTX said Tuesday.
The $7 million in awards from the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Strategic Development, Planning and Experimentation Office in addition to the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Rapid Prototyping Program will help RTX, formerly generally known as Raytheon Technologies, move forward on the event and testing of its GhostEye MR radar.
GhostEye MR is a medium-range multimission radar that may detect, track and discover threats including cruise missiles, drones, and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. The corporate said GhostEye MR can each operate as a standalone radar and be integrated with the NASAMS air defense systems used to guard overseas air bases.
The contracts’ total value is small in comparison with another government deals. But Joe DeAntona, Raytheon’s vice chairman of necessities and capabilities for land and air defense systems, told Defense News on Tuesday that the agreements allow the firm to maneuver GhostEye MR out of its own research and development efforts and into more of a Pentagon-involved project.
RTX said the funding will allow an AFRL-run operational test at White Sands Missile Range in Latest Mexico, now scheduled for September.
In September 2022, the lab and RTX conducted an experiment in Andøya, Norway, to exhibit how the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS — made by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace alongside RTX — may very well be used to defend air bases against advanced aerial threats.
The operational assessment next month will construct on that experiment through the use of the Air Force’s command-and-control capabilities to link GhostEye MR with NASAMS’ Fire Distribution Center, RTX said in a release.
GhostEye MR has been within the works for greater than three years, DeAntona said. But to this point, before receiving these first government contracts last week, the corporate has funded the system’s development, prototyping and testing through internal R&D, he explained. The corporate’s prototyping work on GhostEye MR took place at its facilities in Latest England, including in Andover, Massachusetts, DeAntona said.
DeAntona added that if the federal government decides it desires to fund and move forward with GhostEye MR, then RTX would give you the chance to start out producing the sensors for NASAMS inside “months, not years.”
“We’re able to move forward,” he said. “The technology is matured, the shape and performance of the radar is completed. Now it’s a matter of taking customer feedback and either modifying or delivering what we’ve so far based on the client’s demand signal.”
“This isn’t a PowerPoint slide. We’ve bent the steel,” he added, “and we’ve produced an operational radar to satisfy the necessities of our warfighters.”
GhostEye MR will likely be easily transportable and use the most recent sensor technology, DeAntona said, and give you the chance to trace incoming threats which are each high and fast, in addition to low and slow. It also uses modular technologies that may allow the Air Force to operate GhostEye MR in several different configurations, he noted.
RTX also said GhostEye MR shares some technology with the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor — one other radar within the GhostEye series that RTX is constructing for the Army, but one the corporate said has a distinct mission set than GhostEye MR.
DeAntona said GhostEye MR uses an energetic electronically scanned array, or AESA, radar comprised of gallium nitride. RTX has said the semiconductor material used to construct radar circuits allows for a stronger and more sensitive, longer-range radar signal, while energetic electronically scanned array technology provides 360-degree coverage.
RTX also said GhostEye MR has a software-defined aperture, which might allow it so as to add more capabilities through software upgrades.
America uses NASAMS to protect airspace over the National Capital Region, and has sent the launcher and munitions to Ukraine as a part of the trouble to arm the nation against Russia’s invasion.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.