The Air Force is moving forward with a replacement for its decades-old long-range radar

The great warrior G.I. Joe once said that ‘knowing is half the battle,’ but the Air Force is still using antiquated long-range radar systems from the 1960s to know what threats are approaching on the modern battlefield.

The service plans to fix that with the TPY-4 radar, a ground-based array that has longer range and better coverage than its predecessors and can also pick out smaller objects like unmanned aerial vehicles from the background clutter.

The Air Force is throwing down plenty of cash to bring that technology to life. On Jan. 19, the service awarded nearly $84,938,768 to Lockheed Martin to help cover the bill for producing TPY-4 systems, at least one of which has already been completed. The most recent sum builds off a previous $94 million contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in March, when the Air Force first selected the TPY-4 to replace its aging TPS-75 radar system as part of its Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long Range Radar (3DELRR) program.



That agreement “includes production options for 35 long-range radar systems,” according to Lockheed Martin. The total value of the contract is now about $183 million, according to the Department of Defense.

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