Hanscom US Air Force Base team awards long-range radar integration contract with production options.

The Theater Battle Control Division, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, awarded an $8.4 million integration contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. March 26 as part of the Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar Rapid Prototyping program.

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The Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar, or 3DELRR, program office, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., awarded an integration contract with production options to Lockheed Martin Corp. March 26, 2021. Program officials are currently utilizing the “SpeedDealer” strategy to acquire a production-ready, commercially available upgrade for the TPS-75 radar, pictured on a transport vehicle here (Picture source: U.S. Air National Guard)

Program officials said the main intent of the integration effort is to develop, test and field interfaces allowing the radar system to transmit data to other command and control nodes.

“The 3DELRR team is using a Middle Tier Acquisition approach (SpeedDealer) to rapidly procure and field long-range radar systems to the warfighter,” said Col. Michael Harm, the division’s senior materiel leader.

“SpeedDealer” is an acquisition strategy unveiled in January 2020, to take advantage of advances in technology to replace the TPS-75 radar with production-ready systems. The 3DELRR team selected Lockheed for integration after evaluating three commercially available, production-ready, and deployable long-range systems during a series of live-fly demonstrations this past September.

The team is currently evaluating other offers and could award a second integration contract in the coming months if an agreement can be reached that’s in the best interest of the Air Force, said Lt. Col. Matthew Judge, 3DELRR deputy program manager. As no procurement funds are currently available, the potential of a second integration award would maintain competitive pressure through the next year until funds are available, allowing the program office to provide the best support to the warfighter.

“If we do award another integration contract, while we intend to award production options to only one of the companies next year, our strategy allows us to award to multiple companies if that makes the most sense,” Judge said. “We are excited to be moving forward with providing the warfighter a radar to detect modern threats.”

The current contract includes production options for up to 35 state-of-the-art long-range radar systems.

The team expects the selected system or systems to be fully deployable by 2024.