Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. has been awarded a $236.9 million U.S. Navy contract modification for work on the Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) program for the U.S. Marine Corps, according to the U.S. Department of Defense contract announcements.
The deal, which modifies a $958 million contract originally awarded in 2019, provides for the exercise of three option contract line items to procure eight G/ATOR Gallium Nitride full-rate production systems with associated travel and one lot of the initial provisioning package (spares) in support of Program Executive Officer Land Systems, Quantico, Virginia.
Within the contract work will be performed in Linthicum, Maryland, and is expected to be complete by Feb. 28, 2024.
The G/ATOR is a highly expeditionary, three-dimensional, short-to-medium-range multi-role radar that will replace several legacy and retired systems such as the AN/TPS-63. The difference will be easy hardware/software replacement, the capability for elevation tracking and assisting the AN/TPS-59A(V)3 Long-Range Radar in filling in gaps in radar resolution.
This multi-mission air surveillance system can detect, identify and track airborne threats common to combat environments. These include cruise missiles, aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles, as well as rocket, artillery and mortar fire.
Northrop Grumman says the long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 replaces five of the Marine Corps’ single-mission radars with one multi-mission system, reducing cost and complexity while streamlining training. It consolidates the air surveillance, air defense and counterfire target acquisition missions of the AN/TPQ-46, UPS-3, AN/TPS-63, AN/MPQ-62 and AN/TPS-73 into one package with radar, power and communications elements.
In addition, earlier in August 2020, the U.S. Marine Corps has confirmed that it is replacing its legacy ground weapons locating radar with a new AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) multi-role radar system.
