Raytheon’s Global Patriot Solutions is a missile defense system consisting of radars, command-and-control technology and multiple types of interceptors, all working together to detect, identify and defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, advanced aircraft and other threats. Patriot is the foundation of integrated air and missile defense for 16 nations.
Since it was first fielded, Raytheon’s Patriot has been used by five nations in more than 200 combat engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles. Since January of 2015, Patriot has intercepted more than 100 ballistic missiles in combat operations around the world; more than 90 of those intercepts involved the low-cost Raytheon-made Guidance Enhanced Missile family of surface-to-air missiles.
Those engagements were possible because Patriot is built on a foundation of more than 3,000 ground tests and over 1,400 flight tests. Each and every time Patriot is tested or live fired, engineers uncover new ways to further improve or enhance the system. The improvements are necessary because the threat is constantly changing and becoming more sophisticated.
The result of the improvements and enhancements is that today’s Patriot is advanced, modern, and capable of defeating the full spectrum of threats. It shares the same name and basic purpose of the Patriot of the past, but that is where the similarity ends. Patriot has continually embraced new technologies to stay ahead of evolving threats. As a result, with a few small exceptions, such as heaters and cooling fans, the bulk of the system has been modernized over the past 17 years.
This is possible because Patriot’s architecture is flexible and designed in a manner that allows it to be continually upgraded and improved. This on-going modernization is funded by members of the Patriot partnership – a 16-nation consortium of Patriot users which has invested significantly in improvements, enhancements and upgrades over the past 20 years. Global Patriot has a defined growth path that will ensure the system continues outpacing the threat through 2048 and beyond.
