Scott Nicholas
Raytheon has showcased a company-built air and missile defense radar system during a ballistic missile defense exercise held at the U.S. Navy‘s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.
The exercise tested if Raytheon’s AN/SPY-6 radar could acquire, search and track a ballistic missile target and the test followed a series of activities in which the platform helped track integrated air and missile defense targets, aircraft and satellites, the company said Friday.
AN/SPY-6 has tracked various targets of increasing complexity since the system was installed at the PMRF in May last year.
“The live testing we’ve been doing here at PMRF continues to demonstrate the maturity of the hardware and software and the performance of the overall system,” said Tad Dickenson, director of Raytheon’s air and missile defense radar program.
The radar has also detected multiple satellites located hundreds of miles above Earth as well as a medium range ballistic missile target from launch to flight when used in conjunction with a Standard Missile 3 Block IIA interceptor during a recent flight test.
Raytheon said it expects the AN/SPY-6 radar program to enter low-rate initial production soon and the company remains on schedule for the delivery of the technology to the Navy’s DDG 51 Flight III destroyer.
