LONDON — Northrop Grumman's Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR as it's known by its future user, the US Marine Corps, is close to receiving government approval to be sold abroad.
And according to Mark Smith, Northrop's business development director for tactical radars, several countries have expressed interest in buying G/ATOR.
The Pentagon's acquisition chief Frank Kendall signed an executive communication in September last year, which, for the first time, created a US Office of the Secretary of Defense-level export policy for ground-based active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars. The move opened the door for the second major piece that Northrop needs to be able to offer G/ATOR to other countries.
A G/ATOR-specific export policy document exists and is in its final approval stage, Smith said. "We would anticipate that roughly by the end of this year that document as well will be approved." Once that is in place, "we are then allowed to ask to request technology data export licenses so we can share detailed technical information to appropriate allies."
G/ATOR, which became a program of record for the Marine Corps in 2007, is the first ground-based, multimission AESA radar to be developed by the Department of Defense.
"G/ATOR's job is, regardless of target type, whether it's fixed-wing, rotor-wing, cruise missile, unmanned autonomous systems, counter-rocket artillery or mortar rounds, G/ATOR must detect it, track it and provide engagement quality data in real time," Smith said. The radar is capable of detecting at short, medium and long ranges.
The radar will conduct air surveillance, short-range air and missile defense, and counter-rocket, artillery, mortar and air traffic control missions for the Marine Corps. Ultimately, G/ATOR will replace at least five or six different kinds of Marine Corps ground-based radars and will be more mobile with a quicker setup. The radar takes less than 30 minutes to set up or take down, whereas some legacy systems can take an entire day or two, Smith said.
The Marine Corps' operations and maintenance costs are expected to fall dramatically when it no longer has to fund different legacy systems' training and logistics support.
Smith said seven or eight countries have already sent formal government-to-government letters of interest in G/ATOR. Once the export policy is in place, the US government and Northrop can provide the right level of detail to those countries that are interested.
Countries in Northern and Eastern Europe have expressed interest, Smith said, which is "not surprising in light of recent events," and several other countries in the Far East have also sent letters.
Northrop reached two major milestones at the end of last month for the G/ATOR program, Smith said. The company was awarded a $58 million contract to add counter-rocket, artillery and mortar capability to G/ATOR through a software modification.
Northrop also got a contract to use gallium nitride (GaN) technology in G/ATOR, which provides a higher output of energy, efficiency, reliability and an increased thermal margin, Smith said. "There are a whole overlay of benefits that gallium nitride provides."
In fiscal 2016, Northrop will incorporate GaN into its low-rate production systems and everything from that point on will use GaN, while the few systems already built will be retrofitted with the technology. Smith noted it takes just minutes to change the system from gallium arsenide, which G/ATOR has now, to GaN.
Northrop has received two LRIP contracts to build G/ATOR for the Marines, one awarded in October last year and another follow-on contract in March.
Funding for the program to date amounts to about $1 billion, Smith said: roughly $600 million for research, development testing and evaluation funding, and $300 million to produce the system.
While the Marine Corp is full-speed ahead in developing and building a one-stop-shop radar for both air and ground surveillance that is highly mobile, the US Army still uses single-mission radars.
"The Army several years ago actually stood up an initial requirement of a multimission radar," Smith said, but they subsequently "let that go by the wayside" because of other priorities. Whether the Army will renew a push for a multimission radar down the road remains to be seen.
However, Northrop Grumman successful implemented an initial interface between G/ATOR and the Army's Integrated Battle Command System, the brains for its Integrated Air and Missile Defense program that is now taking shape. The company is also the prime contractor for IBCS. "It's clear that G/ATOR can plug and play with the Army IBCS," Smith said.
If the Army decides to consider a multimission radar, G/ATOR could replace the Raytheon-made Sentinel air surveillance radar and also could replace its longer-range counter-fire target acquisition radar, currently the Lockheed Martin-made TPQ-53, Smith said.
"G/ATOR is a much higher power radar than the TPQ-53, and we think that once we embody that [counter-fire target acquisition capability] in G/ATOR," he said, "we will be able to demonstrate to the Army significantly longer-range ability to determine launch points so that they can use long-range precision weapons to engage the launch location at significantly longer ranges than their current radars support."
Email: jjudson@defensenews.com
Twitter: @jenjudson
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
