Tuesday was a banner day for Raytheon: The huge U.S. high-tech defense contractor announced more than $190 million in new orders to upgrade Patriot anti-ballistic missile interceptor batteries for South Korea and Kuwait.

Raytheon said in a statement it had won a $38.5 million contract from COMLOG -- its joint venture with the German LFK missile company -- to boost the capabilities of 64 South Korean Patriot PAC-3 interceptors. LFK is part of the multinational MBDA group.

The award came as no surprise, as South Korea previously had announced its plans to upgrade its existing PAC-2 capabilities as part of a greatly increased investment in ballistic missile defense.

Seoul had bought the old U.S.-built PAC-2s from Germany to be deployed by the South Korean air force. Raytheon said the missiles would be modernized at its Integrated Air Defense Center in Andover, Mass.

"The contract enables the upgrade of 64 Korean Patriot Advanced Capability-2 missiles to Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical, or GEM-T, configuration, providing enhanced capability against ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles," said Sanjay Kapoor, vice president of Patriot Programs for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "This upgrade is designed to enhance system capabilities to meet current and emerging threats."

Raytheon noted that it already had won contracts earlier this year -- previously reported in these columns -- for command and control, communications, maintenance support, and engineering support for the South Korean Patriot program. In all, those contracts were worth $269 million. The company also noted its Integrated Defense Systems division remained the prime contractor for the Patriot program.

Raytheon also announced it had won a new $156 million Foreign Military Sales award from the U.S. Army to supply the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate of Kuwait with Patriot PAC-3 radar upgrade kits and what the company described as "related engineering and technical services."

"There continues to be a growing demand, both domestically and internationally, for Raytheon's combat-proven Patriot system," Kapoor said. "This award for the state of Kuwait is an additional indication of the continued expansion of Patriot as the cornerstone of the U.S. and the international partners' integrated air and missile defense systems."

"Working with the U.S. Army, we will provide the state of Kuwait with this increased capability," Kapoor said. "The upgrade demonstrates the operational flexibility of Patriot as the premier air and missile defense system."

Raytheon said the work on the Kuwaiti contract would be carried out at Raytheon's Integrated Air Defense Center in Andover, Mass.; at the Warfighter Protection Center in Huntsville, Ala.; and at the Mission Capability and Verification Center in White Sands, N.M.

New LM complex will test MEADS radars
Lockheed Martin announced Monday it had started construction work on a new radar testing complex in Syracuse, N.Y. The company said the new $15 million, 9,600-square-foot complex would soon be used to check out the Medium Extended Air Defense System.

MEADS is an ambitious mobile air and missile defense system that is being developed to be the next generation of anti-ballistic missile and air defense interceptor missile, succeeding the current Patriot batteries in the United States and Germany and the Nike Hercules systems still used by Italy.

Lockheed Martin said its new Syracuse complex would be producing MEADS' new surveillance radar and it also would be working on software and hardware components for use in the MEADS Multifunction Fire Control Radar.

"Our new radar test facility will support next-generation sensor development for 21st-century radar systems with extremely accurate and rapid antenna signal characterization capabilities," explained Carl Bannar, vice president of Lockheed Martin Radar Systems. "The facility's design will ensure that our customers' requirements for protecting allied troops and providing homeland defense are met for the most demanding applications."

The new radar testing center also will be equipped with an 80-foot-high advanced, large-antenna measurement system to be erected on the current EP-6 building at Lockheed Martin's Radar Systems facility in Syracuse, the company said.

"Once complete in summer 2009, the facility will house one of the largest high-precision, spherical near-field radar test and measurement systems," Lockheed Martin said.

Work began on building the new complex last Friday. It will be equipped with new measuring instruments that will allow it "to design, analyze, characterize and test future radar systems, ranging from the smallest systems to next-generation digital phased array systems. It will have the capability to perform highly accurate antenna, radar system and radar cross-section measurements at a wide range of frequencies," Lockheed Martin said.

The new equipment will give the company the capability to employ a fully automated "precision antenna measurement process from setup through analysis and report generation," the company said.

The new complex will also be equipped with an electromagnetically shielded anechoic chamber insulated with special foam to prevent radio frequency radiation from escaping from it or outside sound interference and radio frequencies from penetrating it.

The new complex is being built for Lockheed Martin Radar Systems by MI Technologies of Suwanee, Ga., which won the $9.9 million contract last year.