The Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] $46.6 million in contract options to begin upgrades to 29 long range radars designed to provide advanced warning and air traffic control surveillance for North American airspace, the company said recently.
Lockheed Martin will be tasked with completed engineering to begin modernizing the AN/FPS-117 radars under the initial phase of the award under the Essential Parts Replacement Program (EPRP).
Future options call for the replacing and upgrading the radars’ signal and data processors to meet current commercial and technology standards to extend their operational lifetime to 2025, Lockheed Martin said. Lockheed Martin first installed the radars in the early 1980s under the Seek Igloo North Warning Program.
The EPRP contract has Lockheed Martin modernizing 15 radars in Alaska, 11 in Canada, and one each in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Utah by 2014, the company said.
Lockheed Martin said it has successfully completed similar radar modernizations at sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, Romania and Kuwait in recent years.
EPRP is being managed by the Ogden Air Logistics Center in the Air Force Material Command.
Lockheed Martin said the AN/FPS-117 is NATO-certified and the world’s most widely used three-dimensional, solid-state radar.