Lockheed Martin says radar built in Salina, Owego passes tracking test

The Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) AN/TPQ-53 counterfire radar recently demonstrated its ability to identify and track unmanned aerial systems and transmit the data to a command-and-control node

The Bethesda, Maryland–based defense contractor views the radar’s performance as a “key capability” as the “battle space rapidly becomes more crowded with emerging air threats.”

Lockheed Martin workers in Salina; Owego; Moorestown, New Jersey; and Clearwater, Florida perform work on the Q-53 radars, the company said in a news release issued Monday.

“The demonstration showed that the Q-53 radar can provide soldiers in combat real-time awareness of air threats,” Rick Herodes, director of Lockheed Martin’s Q-53 program, said. “The inherent flexibility of the Q-53’s active electronically scanned array (AESA) hardware architecture allows us to constantly evolve the Q-53’s software to deal with emerging threats. This demonstration provided further verification that the Q-53 enables the war fighter to stay ahead of changing global threats.”

The demonstration was part of the U.S. Army’s maneuver and fires integration experiment (MFIX) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

The annual MFIX exercise brings together military, industry and academia to assess options for “future war fighting needs in a live environment,” the company said.

In the demonstration, the Q-53 radar identified and tracked several unmanned-aerial systems and provided data to Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD C2).

Simultaneously, the Q-53 radar performed its original mission by providing “accurate” targeting data on rockets, artillery and mortars, providing a “multimission radar (MMR) capability.”

Lockheed Martin is manufacturing “multiple” Q-53 radars per month, the firm said.

Since Lockheed won the development contract for the Q-53 radar in 2007, the company has won five additional contracts for a total of more than 100 radars.

It has delivered more than 60 systems to the U.S. Army. The company expects the Army to award a “full-rate production” contract this year, bringing the system total to more than 170.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com