Graham Warwick and Howard Gethin/FARNBOROUGH
NATO is watching the UK's Airborne Stand-Off Radar (ASTOR) competition with keen interest as it works to restart its stalled Air Ground Surveillance (AGS) programme. The winner of the £730 million ($1.2 billion) UK contract is likely to take pole position for any NATO procurement, and this could at least double the production run for the successful system.
Like the UK, the Alliance rejected a US offer of the Boeing 707-based Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS). NATO has gone back to "ground zero" and is studying available systems and platforms, chief among which are the three ASTOR contenders.
The possibility of a NATO order for around six aircraft on top of a UK contract for four or five aircraft, plus the potential for more exports of both the ASTOR platform and other applications of the same radar technology, have added another dimension to the competition.
Whereas the JSTARS is a large and complex battle management platform, the ASTOR is essentially an imagery intelligence aircraft, with limited command and control capability. A typical ASTOR crew will be around six, compared with 21 in the E-8. The ASTOR system, therefore, is viewed as more widely exportable.
The ASTOR requirement, however, calls for a more advanced radar than that now carried by the E-8, and the role UK industry will play in developing and exporting that radar as become a key issue in the contest.
All three of the competing teams are US-led. Two are offering to produce all ASTOR-type platforms for export customers in the UK. The third is offering UK industry participation in a larger, US-led programme, and therefore a stake in its export, but the scale of UK involvement remains undetermined.
REDUCING RISK
Lockheed Martin is the only one of the three teams offering a UK-developed radar on a Gulfstream V, like Northrop Grumman, but the US content of the system is still significant, to reduce the risk. The active array radar would be developed by Racal using transmit/receive modules supplied by Raytheon Systems and synthetic aperture radar algorithms provided by Lockheed Martin.
Despite this, Racal argues that winning the ASTOR contest would give the UK company the capability to develop future active array versions of its Searchwater 2000 family of airborne early warning and maritime reconnaissance radars. One likely application is the Royal Navy's forthcoming Follow-On Airborne Early Warning requirement.
Racal sees some export potential for the ASTOR platform, but sees greater possibilities for sales of advanced Searchwater derivatives incorporating elements of the ASTOR system's battlefield surveillance capabilities.
Meanwhile, Raytheon is offering an ASTOR solution based around a US radar, but with a UK-developed passive electronically scanned antenna, supplied by GEC and mounted in a Bombardier Global Express. The US company argues that this approach offers the lowest risk, with the potential for a mid-life upgrade to an active array radar.
Under its bid, Raytheon says, the UK would have an independent capability to support and export the ASTOR system. In particular, the US company makes clear that (given a win in the UK), if NATO selects its ASTOR platform for the AGS programme, the aircraft would be supplied from the UK.
Northrop Grumman is the dark horse. Its "dissimilar proposal" is based around UK participation in the Radar Technol-ogy Insertion Programme (RTIP) aimed at upgrading US JSTARS aircraft with an active array radar.
The RTIP sensor is acknowledged to exceed the ASTOR requirement and is likely to be the most advanced on offer to the UK. That carries with it certain risks. The RTIP development programme will be a six-year, $750 million effort that will meet the desired ASTOR in service date of 2003 only by virtue of the UK systems being at the "front end of deliveries", the US company admits.
There is also the issue of export releasability. Northrop Grumman's intent is to offer its UK radar partner "noble work" on the ASTOR sensor, including transferring technology for the transmit/receive modules, but this is subject to US Government approval.
The USA has already offered the RTIP to NATO, independent of the ASTOR competition, and it remains to be decided, if the Alliance selects an ASTOR-type platform, whether it would come from the USAor the UK. This could prove crucial in the contest, due to be decided next May.
Source: Flight International
