The Theater Battle Control Division, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, awarded an $8.4 million integration contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. March 26 as part of the Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar Rapid (3DELRR) Prototyping program. Program officials said the main intent of the integration effort is to develop, test and field interfaces allowing the radar system to transmit data to other command and control nodes.
Lockheed Martin has received an $8.4 million follow-on contract to develop a data transmission interface as part of the U.S. Air Force’s rapid prototyping competition to modernize the legacy TPS-75 military radar system. The integration contract under the Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar development program has options for the company to manufacture up to 35 system. 3DELRR program office issued the award after an evaluation of production-ready commercial radars from Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and Australia-based defense technology maker CEA during a live-fly event that took place on Sept. 26 at Hanscom AF Base in Massachusetts.
SpeedDealer” is an acquisition strategy unveiled in January 2020, to take advantage of advances in technology to replace the TPS-75 radar with production-ready systems. The 3DELRR team selected Lockheed for integration after evaluating three commercially available, production-ready, and deployable long-range systems during a series of live-fly demonstrations this past September. The current contract includes production options for up to 35 state-of-the-art long-range radar systems.
The team is currently evaluating other offers and could award a second integration contract in the coming months if an agreement can be reached that’s in the best interest of the Air Force, said Lt. Col. Matthew Judge, 3DELRR deputy program manager. As no procurement funds are currently available, the potential of a second integration award would maintain competitive pressure through the next year until funds are available, allowing the program office to provide the best support to the warfighter.The team expects the selected system or systems to be fully deployable by 2024.
