Photo: Raytheon
It must take a lot of courage for a company to call one of its products a world-best, especially in a field as competitive as the defense industry. Yet that's exactly what defense company Raytheon calls its newest and brightest air and missile defense radar.
The thing is officially called Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (or LTAMDS for short). It's a name that might be all too familiar, and for good reason.
It was less than a month ago when we learned of the LTAMDS being involved in a live-fire test against a cruise missile surrogate. Fired by the U.S. Army on a threat trajectory, the weapon was quickly picked up by the radar, which immediately helped deploy countermeasures against it.
We're bringing the thing up again because Raytheon announced the completion of yet another live fire test of the technology, this time involving a surrogate tactical ballistic missile. Just like it was the case back in November, we are not told where and when exactly the test occurred, but we are informed of its success.
As per Raytheon, the 360-degree radar picked up the missile heading on a "threat-representative trajectory" and started tracking it. When the moment was right, the trajectory data was sent to the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), which issued a launch command for a Lockheed Martin PAC-3 interceptor missile to be fired at it.
We're not specifically told this, but the success of the test most likely in this case means the target was obliterated.
Designed as a tool to fight off a variety of airborne threats, from missiles of all kinds (including hypersonic) to aircraft and drones that are capable of performing mid-air maneuvers, the LTAMDS may prove an important deterrent system as well, especially given the state of things in today's world.
The system's primary array is about the same size as the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, but according to its maker it packs twice the firepower. The radar that comprises it can be integrated with both the Patriot and the Integrated Air and Missile Defense system.
The radars are not yet deployed in the service of the American military, but six of them have already been built are based at various Raytheon and military facilities for testing as part of a family called GhostEye. Tests such as the ones announced these past month will continue well into the next year.
Raytheon has been working on the tech for a while now, and the U.S. Army announced it had selected it as the radar for the Patriot missile system back in 2017. Compared to the radar currently in use, which only scans one part of the sky at a time, the LTAMDS looks everywhere, all the time.
It was less than a month ago when we learned of the LTAMDS being involved in a live-fire test against a cruise missile surrogate. Fired by the U.S. Army on a threat trajectory, the weapon was quickly picked up by the radar, which immediately helped deploy countermeasures against it.
We're bringing the thing up again because Raytheon announced the completion of yet another live fire test of the technology, this time involving a surrogate tactical ballistic missile. Just like it was the case back in November, we are not told where and when exactly the test occurred, but we are informed of its success.
As per Raytheon, the 360-degree radar picked up the missile heading on a "threat-representative trajectory" and started tracking it. When the moment was right, the trajectory data was sent to the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), which issued a launch command for a Lockheed Martin PAC-3 interceptor missile to be fired at it.
We're not specifically told this, but the success of the test most likely in this case means the target was obliterated.
Designed as a tool to fight off a variety of airborne threats, from missiles of all kinds (including hypersonic) to aircraft and drones that are capable of performing mid-air maneuvers, the LTAMDS may prove an important deterrent system as well, especially given the state of things in today's world.
The system's primary array is about the same size as the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, but according to its maker it packs twice the firepower. The radar that comprises it can be integrated with both the Patriot and the Integrated Air and Missile Defense system.
The radars are not yet deployed in the service of the American military, but six of them have already been built are based at various Raytheon and military facilities for testing as part of a family called GhostEye. Tests such as the ones announced these past month will continue well into the next year.
Raytheon has been working on the tech for a while now, and the U.S. Army announced it had selected it as the radar for the Patriot missile system back in 2017. Compared to the radar currently in use, which only scans one part of the sky at a time, the LTAMDS looks everywhere, all the time.
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