The U.S. Army plans to begin its future air and missile defense sensor competition with demonstrations as part of the service branch’s new acquisition approach that aims to shorten a program’s development period, Defense News reported Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Neil Thurgood told Defense News the Army aims to use a “knowledge points” system to decide whether to accelerate the Lower-Tier Air-and-Missile Defense Sensor program or stay on course, Jen Judson wrote.
“Rather than have a traditional program that goes so long, we have these ‘knowledge points’ and so demonstrations are one of these knowledge points,” said Thurgood.
He added LTAMDS program participants Raytheon and Lockheed Martin will demonstrate radars as the first knowledge point and the program might skip or shorten technology maturation and risk reduction phase if there are radars that meet requirements.