Navy Awards Raytheon Contract for Next 3 SPY-6 Radars for Destroyers

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has ordered three shipsets of the Raytheon-built SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) for installation on three Arleigh Burke Flight III guided-missile destroyers (DDGs).

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems has been awarded a $402.6 million fixed-price-incentive (firm target) modification to previously-awarded contract to exercise Low-Rate Initial Production options for three SPY-6(V)1 radars, the Defense Department announced on March 14.

The SPY-6(V)1 replaces the SPY-1 in the Aegis Combat System in the forthcoming Flight III DDGs. It features 37 radar module assemblies (RMAs) on four fixed antenna faces.

The order brings to seven the number of AMDR radars ordered for the Arleigh Burke DDG program. The work will be performed in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed by March 2023.

“We are on track right now with Shipset One, which we plan to deliver to Huntington Ingalls next year for [DDG]125,” said Scott Spence, Raytheon’s director of Naval Radars in a March 15 teleconference with reporters.

Raytheon also is developing the SPY-6(V)2 Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR). Spence said the Engineering and Manufacturing Development model of the EASR was delivered to the Navy’s test site at Wallops Island, Virginia, on March 11 and installed on a test tower the next day. This rotating radar, equipped with nine radar module assemblies (3 by 3 on a rotating face), will be tested for six months through the summer, with its air-traffic control and weather capabilities testing being included. Spence said that testing will lead into orders of long-lead materials for full-rate production of the EASR, expected to begin in late summer or the fall of 2019. The SPY-6(V)2 will be fitted onto amphibious assault ships and older aircraft carriers to replace the SPS-48/49 radars.

Spence said the SPY-6(V)3, three sets of 9-RMA fixed-face antennas of the EASR for ships including new aircraft carriers, also is aimed for Full-Rate Production by the end of 2019.

The company also is working on a lighter version of the AMDR for back-fitting on the Flight IIA DDGs. This radar would feature 24 radar module assemblies on fixed faces.

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Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor