WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The new US Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) system will be ready to be analyzed in five years, defense contractor Lockheed Martin said in a release on Monday.
"Lockheed Martin’s proposed LRDR system will be built on an aggressive timeline ready for operational testing in Clear Air Force Station, Alaska by 2020," Lockheed Martin stated.
On Thursday, the US government awarded Lockheed Martin $784 million to create a new missile defense radar computer in Moorestown, New Jersey and at Clear Air Force Station, Alaska. The work is expected to be completed by January 21, 2024 when the contract ends.
Lockheed Martin Integrated Warfare Systems and Sensors Vice President Carl Bannar said this new system met the needs of the US national defense.
"The United States has a limited number of ground-based interceptors to detect threats, yet the number of potential missile threats — and countermeasures used to hide those threats — is growing," Bannar said. "Our offering meets the MDA’s [Missile Defense Agency] vision for LRDR by pairing innovative radar discrimination capability with proven ballistic missile defense algorithms."
Bannar noted that the new radar system built on previous US missile defense instruments.
"Our mature, scalable, GaN [gallium nitride]-based S-Band technology was ideally suited for this high-performance ballistic missile defense application," Bannar concluded.
The US Missile Defense Agency in Huntsville, Alabama is handling the LRDR contract with Lockheed Martin.
