The U.S. Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii contract, a $585 million deal that could open the door for billions in additional business.
The radar will support ballistic missile defense systems intended to protect Hawaii from ballistic missile strikes, which took on new urgency during the early part of the Trump Administration when North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was conducting regular missile tests.
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The radar will provide “autonomous acquisition and persistent precision tracking and discrimination to optimize the defensive capability of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and counter evolving threats,” according to the contract.
The win positions Lockheed Martin for two other potential homeland security radar contracts, with a potential value of up to $4.1 billion.
The radar is based on Lockheed’s Long-Range Discrimination Radar, a Lockheed Martin executive told Defense News earlier this month.
“It ... leverages everything that we’ve done for LRDR and improves on it based on the different threats that we have to attack for HRD-H,” said Chandra Marshall, the LRDR program director.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of the story inaccurately portrayed the number of bidders. Lockheed was the sole bidder for the contract.
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David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.
