Lockheed Martin is developing an upgrade to the Q-53 counterfire target acquisition radar that will provide the system with a new digital backbone using components borrowed from the Sentinel A4.
Mark Mekker, Lockheed's director of Army radar programs, told Inside Defense in an August 10 interview this will be the first major upgrade to the system since the company finished building the Army’s production objective of 189 Q-53 radars. Lockheed won a three-year upgrade contract in July.
The Q-53’s primary role is to track incoming mortars, rockets and artillery and reveal where they were launched.
“Before, this Q-53 radar does its mission,” he said. “But now, we can adapt the radar based on the environment it’s in.”
The Distributed Digital Receiver/Exciter, the digital backbone of the radar, will allow the system to operate in a greater range of environments, and it will be easier to upgrade, Mekker said. New features can be added through software, rather than hardware changes.
“Now the warfighter is going to have a system that can adapt to the threat,” he said. “It really provides an enhanced mission set.”
Mekker said a multi-mission radar mode will include a drone-detection setting. He asserted the upgraded system will also work better in contested environments.
Qualification testing on the upgrade is scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024.
The development contract will be worth $18 million in the first year, and it will rise slightly in the second year, Mekker said. Testing will take place in the third year of the contract.
The Army has not decided yet how many of its existing radars it plans to upgrade, and the speed of upgrades depends on the service’s budget, he said. There are currently no plans to grow the Army’s Q-53 fleet.
The Army declined to comment on the radar upgrade and future plans.
Though production has ended for the Army’s order, Lockheed has continued Q-53 production for foreign military sales, Mekker said. The company will build six radars this year for an unnamed foreign country, and production will begin next year on a different country’s order for 14 radars.
Lockheed expects to build 25 to 30 Q-53s for foreign buyers over the next two to four years, he said. Negotiations are ongoing with four countries that wish to buy the system.
Earlier this year, the Army named the Q-53 as one of the key enablers for its modernization priorities. Short-range air defense has become a priority for the service as it reorients itself toward great power competition.