Raytheon, an RTX company, is transitioning to the production phase of its Lower Tier Air and Missile Defence Sensor (LTAMDS), having completed the U.S. Army’s rigorous flight testing programme and achieved the Milestone C designation.

LTAMDS has undergone eight successful flight tests of increasing complexity, designed to challenge the radar and demonstrate its capabilities against real-world threats. As a result, the Army validated that the radar had reached Milestone C, thereby initiating the production and deployment phase of the programme.

The U.S. Army utilised Middle Tier Acquisition authority, granted by Congress, to rapidly prototype and field LTAMDS. Defence programmes of this scale and complexity typically take over a decade to reach Milestone C.

Raytheon recently delivered the first six LTAMDS to the U.S. Army under a 2019 contract award. The company is currently manufacturing eight additional LTAMDS radars annually and is scaling up production to 12 units per year to meet global demand.

Raytheon is scheduled to deliver radars seven and eight later this year and is producing additional systems for both the U.S. Army and Poland, under contracts awarded in August 2024.

Poland is the first international customer to incorporate LTAMDS into its air and missile defence architecture. A dozen other countries have requested information and are receiving pricing and availability estimates.

Also read: Intracom Defence | Collaboration with Raytheon expands