The US Navy has secretly developed and deployed a new airborne surveillance system that rivals the capability of Northrop Grumman's E-8C JSTARS.

Flight International has obtained new details of the USN's Littoral Surveillance Radar System (LSRS), which appears by name only in a handful of official documents, but is never described.

USN-LSRS 
 © Gary Stedman
The USN's LSRS sensor's canoe-type radome is installed on the underfuselage subset

LSRS is the product of an industry team including Boeing, Raytheon and L-3 Communications, with Boeing serving as the systems integrator. Raytheon supplies the previously undisclosed APS-149 sensor and L-3 Communications is providing maintenance and systems support.

The team has delivered seven LSRS units to the USN. The sensor's lengthy canoe-type radome is able to be installed on the underfuselage of a subset of the Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion fleet.

Sixteen P-3Cs equipped with the block modification upgrade programme (BMUP) can operate the LSRS, which has accumulated more than 2,800h in flight as of February 2007, according to a government document.

The APS-149 is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar that can track and target land and maritime targets, both stationary and moving. The system has been used in demonstrations to cue a Boeing AGM-84K Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response to strike a simulated launcher for an Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile.

It is not clear whether the system can be transferred to the P-3C's future replacement - the Boeing P-8A Poseidon that is now in development. A USN P-8A programme official recently told Flight International that the service would resist any effort to install the LSRS due to concerns about diluting the aircraft's core anti-submarine warfare mission.




Source: Flight International

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