The US Army has entered into a $1.03 billion contract with RTX for the purchase of LTAMDS (“lower echelon air defense and missile defense sensor”) radars until March 2030, which are designed to replace outdated Patriot air defense systems such as the AN/MPQ-53 and AN/MPQ-65.
Western observers have high hopes for the new product:
The new advanced radar will eliminate Patriot’s shortcomings caused by limitations in the operation of outdated radars.
LTAMDS, developed by Raytheon, is positioned as a next-generation radar. Unlike previous Patriot radars, which “see” only in one sector (viewing angle 120°), it is equipped with three antenna arrays (one main in the front and two auxiliary in the rear), which provides 360° all-round coverage. Therefore, there is no longer a need to deploy launchers or deploy several radars to cover the rear.
AN/MPQ-65:
The system was originally designed to work in the IBCS network architecture, which allows it to exchange data with other air defense systems and even guide missiles of third-party anti-aircraft systems.
The new radar uses gallium nitride (GaN, liquid-cooled) AESA instead of GaAs gallium arsenide semiconductors, which significantly increases the system’s range and sensitivity. The radar is capable of effectively detecting and tracking a wide range of threats: from stealth UAVs and cruise missiles to hypersonic weapons and ballistic missiles. Allegedly, thanks to its power, it “breaks through” electronic warfare interference and detects even very fast and small targets at impressive distances.
AN/MPQ-53:
Information about the operating parameters of the system is classified. At the same time, General James Mingus (Deputy Chief of Staff of the US Army) said in July 2025 that Patriot’s detection capabilities are expanding from the current 85×85 km (in range and altitude) to 300×300 km. The developers claim that LTAMDS sees 2.5 times further than the current AN/MPQ-65 radar. Considering that the detection range of large targets for previous Patriot radars was about 150-180 km, for LTAMDS this means a distance of over 400 km when detecting large objects.
The main work on detecting and tracking targets is carried out in the C-band, which allows you to quite accurately “see” small objects even in bad weather conditions. The S-band is used for long-range viewing and primary search for targets. X-band is used for precise target classification and missile guidance. Previously, different radars were required to perform such a range of tasks. LTAMDS combines them into one package using GaN technology, which allows a single antenna array to quickly switch between frequencies.
