LTAMDS programme has achieved Milestone C and is transitioning into production

RTX’s Raytheon business announced on 21 April 2025 that it is transitioning to production of the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) after completing a rigorous US Army flight test programme and achieving the US Department of Defense’s Major Capability Acquisition Milestone C designation.

LTAMDS has completed eight successful flight tests of increasing complexity to stress the radar and prove its capabilities against real-world threats. This led the US Army to validate that the radar has reached Milestone C, initiating the production and deployment phase of the programme and meaning that LTAMDS is now officially designated a US Army programme of record.

LTAMDS is the US Army’s next-generation air and missile defence radar, which will serve as the radar in the army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. It is a 360° active electronically scanned-array (AESA) radar, powered by Raytheon-manufactured gallium nitride, that is designed to provide dramatically improved performance against a range of threats, from manned and unmanned aircraft to cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons.

“This is an unprecedented achievement, with a development programme of this magnitude transitioning from prototype to production and deployment at an accelerated pace,” Tom Laliberty, president of Land and Air Defense Systems at Raytheon, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “Our collaborative partnership with the US Army and our broad base of industry partners has driven the historic execution of the LTAMDS programme in record time, delivering advanced 360° integrated air and missile defence capability.”

The US Army leveraged Middle-Tier Acquisition authority granted by the US Congress to rapidly prototype and field LTAMDS. Raytheon noted in its press release that defence programmes of this scale and complexity regularly take more than a decade to achieve a Milestone C decision.

Raytheon recently delivered the first six LTAMDS to the US Army, funded by a 2019 contract award. The company is currently manufacturing eight additional LTAMDS radars per year and is ramping up annual production to 12 units per year to meet global demand. Raytheon will deliver radars seven and eight later this year and is producing radars for the US Army and Poland that were contracted for in August 2024.

Poland is the first international customer to add LTAMDS to its air and missile defence architecture. According to Raytheon, a dozen additional countries are requesting information about LTAMDS and receiving pricing and availability estimates.