Raytheon Company’s AN/SPY-6(V) air and missile defense radar (AMDR) system recently acquired and tracked a ballistic missile test target during the system’s first dedicated defense exercise.
The exercise was conducted at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Kauai, Hawaii and followed a series of successful tests for AMDR, including tracking integrated air and missile defense targets of opportunity, satellites, and aircraft.
“This marked a historic moment for the Navy,” U.S. Navy Captain Seiko Okano said. “It’s the first time a ballistic missile target was tracked by a wideband digital beamforming radar.”
The system was first installed in May and subsequently tracked targets of increasing difficulty. In October, the system tracked multiple satellites from search and acquisition through their orbits. In November, the radar successfully completed its first integrated air and missile defense track by tracking both aircraft and satellites.
During the radar’s most-recent mission prior to its ballistic missile test target exercise, it successfully and simultaneously searched for, acquired and tracked a medium-range ballistic missile target from launch through its flight.
“We remain on track to deliver an unprecedented capability to the fleet,” Tad Dickerson, Raytheon’s director of the air and missile defense radar program, said. “The live testing we’ve been doing here at PMRF continues to demonstrate the maturity of the hardware and software and the performance of the overall system. The radar performed exactly as we expected it to during this mission, all systems were green.”