First system-level tests of USN EASR completed

Raytheon and the US Navy have completed the first system-level tests of the SPY-6(V)2 Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) at the Surface Combat System Center at Wallops Island in Virginia. 

In the first test the radar searched for, detected, identified and tracked numerous targets - including commercial aircraft - and during a second exercise, EASR tracked multiple targets continuously for several hours during a test event involving another system.

EASR is the newest of the USN's SPY-6 family of radars, and provides simultaneous anti-air and anti-surface warfare, electronic protection and air traffic control for aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships.

‘Moving quickly from radar installation at Wallops Island to “tracks on glass” in less than three months is a major accomplishment,’ Capt Jason Hall, the USN’s programme manager for above water sensors, Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems, said. 

‘The EASR programme is progressing extremely well. We are now one step closer to production and delivering the radar's unmatched capability to the surface fleet.’

Two variants of EASR are being built: a single-face rotating array designated AN/SPY-6(V)2 that will be used on-board amphibious assault ships and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers; and a three fixed-face array designated AN/SPY-6(V)3 that will be used on-board Ford-class aircraft carriers and the future FFG(X) guided missile frigates.

Both versions of EASR are built on scalable radar modular assembly technology, as well as a software baseline that has been matured through development and test successes of AN/SPY-6(V)1, the navy's programme of record for the DDG 51 Flight III destroyers. 

These individual radars can integrate together to form arrays of various sizes to address multiple mission requirements, and EASR also adds air traffic control and weather capabilities to the mature SPY-6 software baseline.

Upon completion of system-level testing in the final quarter of 2019, EASR will transition from the engineering and manufacturing development phase to the production phase. 

The first delivery of AN/SPY-6(V)2 will be to LHA-8, the America-Class amphibious assault ship.