Lockheed Martin has chosen Harris Corp. to be a key member of its team pursuing a US Air Force contract to develop the Space-based Radar (SBR) system. SBR is a transformational system being developed for the US Department of Defense (DoD) to provide global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) for the military and intelligence community. The SBR system will be comprised of a constellation of spacecraft that will provide persistent real-time intelligence on adversary activity through the identification and tracking of moving targets, high resolution synthetic aperture radar imaging and collection of high resolution terrain information.
Lockheed Martin is competing to be the prime contractor and system integrator for the program, and teammate Harris Corp. will develop ground communications architecture concepts and will support another teammate, Northrop Grumman, developing concepts and technology for the space-based radar payload. The Air Force will award two 24-month study contracts in May 2004 in a down select to two prime contractors to continue the definition of the SBR system requirements and evaluate alternative design concepts for the SBR system architecture. Final selection of the prime contractor will be made in 2006 with initial launch scheduled for 2012. In February 2003, Harris Corp. was awarded a potential $88 M contract from the Air Force to develop a pre-prototype SBR payload. The payload consists of an integrated electronically steered array (ESA) and on board processor (OBP). Lockheed Martin has been under contract to the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center since December 2002 to perform trade studies and define alternative concepts for the SBR system.