Lockheed Martin has received a $114 million contract to accelerate delivery of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles to United Arab Emirates (UAE) through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2019, The United Arab Emirates Armed Forces purchased 452 Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) Missiles Segment Enhanced (MSE) and related equipment for an estimated cost of $2.728 billion.
The deal comes as a modification a $3.3 billion contract awarded in December 2018 to provide patriot missiles to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It also comes nine months after the State Department’s approval in March of a $2.78 billion deal to provide Patriot missiles to UAE. In February, UAE announced more than $3 billion in defense deals at the International Defense Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi, including a deal to become Lockheed’s first customer for its anti-missile system.
The AN/MPQ-53 at the heart of the system is known as the “Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target” or Patriot, missile program is an air-defense guided missile system with long-range, medium-to-high-altitude and all-weather capabilities. The Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) upgrade carried with it a new missile design, nominally known as MIM-104F and called PAC-3 by the Army. The PAC-3 missile evolved from the Strategic Defense Initiative’s ERINT missile, and so it is dedicated almost entirely to the anti-ballistic missile mission.
In 2014, the United Arab Emirates closed a deal (nearly $4 billion) with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to buy and operate the latest development of the PAC-3 system, as well as 288 of Lockheed’s PAC-3 missiles, and 216 GEM-T missiles. The deal is part of the development of a national defense system to protect the Emirates from air threats. Work on the contract will be performed at several U.S. Lockheed worksites and is expected to be completed Dec. 31, 2024.
