Lockheed Martin recently completed a successful Critical Design Review (CDR) for the Advanced Hawkeye radar.

Advanced Hawkeye, now in development by Northrop Grumman, is the U.S. Navy's next-generation airborne early warning and battle management system and will be the Navy's airborne node in the service's transformation to warfighting of the future.

Lockheed Martin leads the Advanced Hawkeye radar industry team responsible for design and development of the Hawkeye's next-generation radar. In August 2003, the company received a $413.5 million contract from prime contractor Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems to begin the System Development and Demonstration phase. Current production Hawkeye 2000 aircraft use Lockheed Martin's AN/APS-145 airborne radar.

"The radar represents the largest development piece for the Advance Hawkeye program, making it critical for program success," said Jim Culmo, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems Advanced Hawkeye program director and Integrated Product Team lead. "With this very successful radar Critical Design Review, Lockheed Martin has demonstrated that they are on track with the design and development of this critical system. The resulting low number of actions coming out of this review is a testament to the strong program and engineering performance of the Lockheed Martin team."

"Once completed, the new Advanced Hawkeye radar will be able to provide unprecedented capability to detect and track airborne and cruise missile threats to allied forces operating in the littorals," said Dr. Dennis Beres, vice president for airborne and land-based radars at Lockheed Martin. "We're proud to be working on a program that will enhance the protection of our forces, as well as to deliver it on schedule and on cost."

The Advanced Hawkeye radar is planned to meet the U.S. Navy's littoral surveillance and theatre air and missile defense missions. Lockheed Martin's team for this phase of the radar program includes Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems and Raytheon Electronic Systems.

The new radar will fit into a space approximately the same as the housing for the AN/APS-145 radar in the current E-2C Hawkeye, despite the new system's added capability and complexity. During the SD&D phase the company will produce two Engineering Development Models and four pre-production radar systems that will be used by Northrop Grumman for qualification, reliability and flight testing. A full-scale production program to equip the 75 Advanced Hawkeye aircraft that the Navy plans to procure by 2020 will follow.

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 130,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services.

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http://www.lockheedmartin.com/ms2.

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors