The first batch of a US-made, short-range air-defense radar that the army has bought for its Dual-Mounted Stinger (DMS) missile system is to be delivered to Taiwan this month, the manufacturer of the radar said yesterday.
The first set of radar systems, Portable Search and Target Acquisition Radar (PSTAR), have been built and tested, said Richard L. Schubert, vice president of the radar and sensor systems of Lockheed Martin.
"All of the radars and their spare parts will be here by October," Schubert said in an interview with the Taipei Times yesterday.
The PSTAR is for use with the DMS missile system, which the army bought from Lockheed Martin. All of the DMS systems were delivered to Taiwan last year without their guidance radars, the PSTARs.
Chang Li-teh (張立德), a senior editor with Defense Technology Monthly, said the army did not buy a radar for the Avenger air-defense missile system, which it purchased at the same time as the DMS. Avenger is a vehicle-mounted version of the Stinger missile.
"The Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology has developed a radar that can be used with the Avenger system. That may be why the army did not buy a radar for the Avenger from its manufacturer," Chang said.
Schubert also said Lockheed Martin is competing with Raytheon, another major arms manufacturer in the US, for a contract with Taiwan to provide a long-range radar system.
"We are working with the US Air Force ... We are trying to understand the Taiwan government's requirements [for a long-range radar]," Schubert said.
"We do have a system called MEADS [Medium Extended Air Defense System] which incorporates a long-range surveillance radar. We are talking about adapting that technology for potential [long-range radar use]," he said.
"Raytheon is our main competitor. They have PAVEPAWS. We think we have a much more technologically advanced solution than PAVEPAWS radar," he said.
PAVE is a US Air Force program name, while PAWS stands for "Phased Array Warning System."
For the moment, Schubert said, Lockheed Martin is working with Taiwan on upgrading two radar systems that Taiwan is using. The two radar systems are the GD-53 radar on the indigenous fighter jet and the GE-592 radar that has been installed in Taiwan since the late 1980s.
"We are trying to understand some emerging requirements that Taiwan has for surveillance radar. We just started talking to some people in [Taiwan] about their needs," Schubert said.
"We have not talked about very specific things yet. They are talking to us about what technology we have and what we can provide," he said.
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