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With the continued proliferation of ballistic missiles, Raytheon is out to dispel the belief that its Patriot missile defense system is too long in the tooth to play an important role in a layered, integrated strategy.
"The perception by some that Patriot is an old system and that its architecture is inflexible is not true," said Skip Garrett, vice president and deputy program manager for Patriot, speaking at the Paris Air Show. "To combat new missiles and UAVs, a mix of proven systems provide the proper defense for critical assets, national infrastructure and military defense assets."
Garrett specifically mentioned Patriot's applicability to counter threats from North Korea. "The focus on North Korea has been on its long-range missiles, but they've been testing far more of their shorter-range missiles."
In an initiative that Raytheon calls the "Resurgence of Patriot," the company has refreshed some of the technology and is actively seeking new partners to manufacture Patriot system components. A decade ago, Raytheon manufactured two-thirds of the system's hardware. Today that figure is down to one-third, Garrett said, adding that most everything but the radar is available to the supplier base.
"Upgrades and new production will require further development of the supply chain," he said. "We want to re-energize our global supplier base and expand industrial partnerships."
Garrett said that Raytheon has made "significant international awards" on its latest Patriot program for the United Arab Emirates, which is the 11th country to buy the system. It's also seen a sizable increase in supplier interest at this year's air show.
"We have had far more suppliers some see us (at our chalet) than we have in the past," he said, adding that the company met with a "sizeable Greek company" just before the show.
Raytheon has two main priorities for Patriot at the moment: modifying all existing units to what it calls the "Patriot Pure Fleet," which includes a new radar digital processor, color displays and touch screens for the operators; and adding two additional Patriot batteries to the U.S. arsenal "to meet demands of combatant commanders." New-generation Patriots can also defend a larger area on the ground and also at a higher altitude, figures that Garrett would not reveal.
Raytheon has also improved Patriot's reliability, increasing mean time between failure from 572 hours (70 days at 8 hours per day) to 6,886 hours (860 days at 8 hours per day). Said Garrett: "We're not talking about marginal improvements."
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