Raytheon [RTN] received a $2.4 billion Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract to produce new-production fire units of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System for Qatar, the company said on Dec. 22.
The contract contains the latest fire units, which includes increased computing power, greater radar processing efficiency, an improved man-machine interface, and reduced life-cycle costs.
Qatar is a new Patriot customer and is becoming the 13th international Patriot customer. The contract is part of a modernization and recapitalization effort that Qatar announced in March.
Patriot is set to become “the cornerstone of Qatar’s advanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability,” Raytheon noted. The company recently won a U.S. Air Force contract to provide Qatar with an Air and Missile Defense Operations Center (ADOC). The ADOC was noted to include integration of various air defense systems, particularly the U.S. Patriot, Early Warning Radar, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
“As our customer base continues to grow, our global partners benefit from the shared costs for system upgrades and enhancements through Raytheon’s unique Engineering Services Program. This ensures that Patriot remains at the highest level of readiness to counter current and evolving threats anywhere in the world,” Dan Crowley, president of Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business, said in a statement.
The contracted work is to be performed at Raytheon’s Integrated Air Defense Center with production at Andover, Mass; El Paso, Texas; and Huntsville, Ala.