Option Funds Fourth Ship Set for AMDR

Raytheon has been awarded a $136 million production contract for the AN/SPY-6(V)1 radar, the US Navy’s (USN) next-generation integrated air and missile defence radar (AMDR). The award is an option exercised under the current low-rate initial production contract and funds the fourth ship set of radar mission equipment.

Since its inception in January 2014, the AMDR programme has met 20 of 20 milestones, ahead of or on schedule. The radar has achieved a series of successes during the USN testing programme and remains on schedule for delivery to the Navy’s first modernised DDG 51 Flight III ARLEIGH BURKE-class destroyer, the future  USS JACK H LUCAS, in 2019.

“AN/SPY-6(V)1 milestones and test successes continue to build, proving the maturity of its design and its exceptional capabilities,” commented the USN’s Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems’ Major Program Manager for Above Water Sensors, Capt. Seiko Okano. “Now in production, we are closer to delivering the nation’s most advanced integrated air and missile defence radar – the new cornerstone capability of the surface fleet.”

Throughout testing at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, the AN/SPY-6(V)1 has proven its multi-mission capability to extend the battlespace and safeguard the fleet from multiple, simultaneous threats. The radar has performed against an array of single and multiple targets of increasing complexity in dedicated flights tests as well as ballistic missile, satellites and aircraft targets of opportunity.

The radar provides greater range, increased accuracy, greater resistance to environmental and man-made electronic clutter and higher reliability and sustainability than currently deployed radars. Its demonstrated sensitivity provides greater coverage for early and accurate detection, which optimises the effectiveness of the Navy’s most advanced weapons, including all variants of Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6.

The inherent scalability of the radar – based on 2’x2’x2’ Radar Modular Assemblies, or individual radar ‘building blocks’ – allows for new instantiations without significant new radar development costs. Scaled variants of the AN/SPY-6(V) already designated as USN programmes of record include the back-fit radar for existing DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers, the new and backfit radars for aircraft carriers and amphibious ships, and the radar for the new guided-missile frigate, FFG(X).