Raytheon wins $1.3b Army pact

Raytheon Co. has landed a $1.3 billion Army contract to develop and test a new radar and sensor system aimed at protecting US troops on the battlefield against cruise missile attacks.

The award, which the Waltham defense company is set to disclose this week, is the second giant contract reeled in this year by Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business in Tewksbury. In May, it won a $3 billion Navy contract to develop advanced radar and communications systems for the DD(X), a new destroyer program.

Raytheon's new Army contract will push into full-scale development the US military's seven-year-old program called JLENS, for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.

The system integrates surveillance and precision-tracking radars into a high-flying blimp, tethered to a ground station or a barge at sea. It is designed to monitor an active battle theater, detect incoming missiles, and alert air defense systems that can knock them down.

The blimp-like structure, called an Aerostat, would fly thousands of feet off the ground and be connected by cable to a power station. From that height its radar and sensors could monitor hundreds of miles of battleground territory, although its exact range is classified.

Such a system deployed to protect troops in Iraq, for example, could be based in neighboring countries far from the war zone and be networked with Raytheon-built defense systems, such as the Patriot and the SLAMRAAM, that seek to intercept incoming missiles. Ultimately, the Army believes JLENS could make such systems more mobile by supplanting their built-in radars.

''What this does is provide a broad sensor umbrella, if you will, that allows for early detection of incoming threats," said Army Colonel Ray Nulk, the JLENS product director at the Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space in Huntsville, Ala. ''It pumps that information into a network and provides the information to the defense firing platforms."

Previously, Raytheon had been working on conceptual studies and demonstrating small-scale systems for the JLENS program under a $70 million contract. The company was selected as JLENS contractor in 1998, beating out Northrop Grumman Corp. and other competitors. Should the Raytheon test system prove effective and enter production, it could lead to sales of more than $3 billion to the US armed forces, as well as to US allies, over the next generation.

''This is going to be one of our foundational programs over the next 10 to 20 years," said Timothy Carey, the vice president for integrated air defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems division. ''As we try to grow the business here in New England, it's important to have these programs that play out over a long period."

Carey said two-thirds of the JLENS work will be done at Raytheon sites in Andover and Tewksbury, where the company is building offices to accommodate the project. Raytheon already has hired 85 engineers and other workers for the JLENS program, he said, and it plans to ramp up to about 300 workers by 2008. JLENS work also will be done at Raytheon plants in Maryland, Texas, and California.

System testing for the project is scheduled to begin in 2009, with the program set to be completed in 2011. While the Army is procurement agent for JLENS, it could also be used to protect the Navy's Aegis destroyers deployed in war zones. And while the technology is designed to thwart cruise missiles -- low-flying subsonic missiles powered by jet engines that can travel tens or hundreds of miles -- Raytheon officials think a version of the system eventually could be used to help intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, rocket-powered supersonic missiles that are shot into space and travel thousands of miles to their targets.

''Any award of this size is meaningful to Raytheon," said Jon Kutler, chief executive at Jefferies Quarterdeck, a New York investment bank specializing in aerospace and defense. Missile defense ''is one of the hottest areas for the military, meaning it's more likely to survive the more restrictive procurement environment over the next few years."

Kutler, however, said it is still unclear if the military would turn to JLENS-type technology to handle the growing ballistic missile threat from countries such as North Korea. ''There are other applications for this, but there are competing technologies," he said.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.