Hundreds of engineers and technicians work together, like a small city that never sleeps.
Three shifts rotate on the production floor, covering day and night.
They are working to build the Navy’s most advanced radar. And right now, it’s all about array number one. The first AN/SPY-6(V)1 radar array has finished near-field range testing and will soon be transported to DDG-125, the future USS Jack H. Lucas, at the shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Building the most advanced naval radar in the world is incredibly complex.
“What goes behind putting these precision radars together is our engineers spending hours and hours overseeing every precise detail,” said Larry Mancini, the SPY-6 ship integration lead. Mancini oversees the installation and integration support to shipyards and test sites for SPY-6.
More than 500 Raytheon Technologies engineers and technicians work exclusively on SPY-6, but they can’t do it alone – more than 125 supply partners from 25 states contribute critical hardware components.
They all have the same goal in mind: delivering the U.S. Navy’s most advanced radar to the fleet.
Behind the scenes
Raytheon Technologies’ 30,000 square-foot, automated, Radar Development Facility in Andover, Massachusetts, is home to the SPY-6 family of radars and the teams dedicated to its production. This is where sophisticated radar testing, integration and production happen around the clock.
SPY-6 is the U.S. Navy’s family of radars that perform integrated air and missile defense across seven classes of ships.
It is a complete collaboration to make every aspect of SPY-6 work.
The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Technologies contracts for the first nine ship sets of SPY-6(V)1, the next-generation, integrated, air- and missile-defense radar for Flight III destroyers. The program is about to transition from low-rate initial production to hardware production and sustainment.
The shifts don’t stop. The cadence of the engineers’ day begins with early morning meetings to review the overnight work and to set the course for the next shift. The work never slows either, with many quality checks on progress.
“All the team is thinking about is building the best and most advanced array the Navy has ever seen,” said Shanique Smith, Air and Missile Defense Radar program manager supporting production efforts. “Our efforts are geared toward getting the first array tested and approved and with that success we keep on going with dozens more to follow.”
Everyone working behind-the-scenes on SPY-6, the U.S. Navy’s program of record, is known as #TeamSPY6.
“We’re showing the Navy that our investment are paying off,” said Mancini, “our process is mature and we are ready for full-rate production.”