On May 26, 2022, the STARE Project Office, U.S. Army Sentinel Product Office received the first five radars of its initial contract with Lockheed Martin. The Sentinel A4 radar is developed and manufactured by Lockheed Martin in Syracuse, N.Y., and has been on an accelerated schedule since the project was awarded in September 2019.
“We are one step closer to getting this enhanced capability to our warfighters,” stated Leah Cook, Sentinel Product Director for the U.S. Army Sentinel A4 program office. “The delivery of the first five radars is a result of collaboration and a continued commitment to the U.S. Army.”
The U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin have a strong partnership founded on collaboration and trust. The process has included virtual reviews and working groups to maintain momentum through all program development phases.
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“Our team understands the criticality of this technology and the need to get it fielded,” said Mark Mekker, director of Army Radars for Lockheed Martin. “Our soldiers are in unpredictable environments, and the Sentinel A4 will provide improved eyes on the field to keep them safe.”
The Sentinel A4’s open scalable radar architecture is the cornerstone of the radar system’s design and allows for addressing evolving threats with software modifications only.
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The new air and missile defence radar will provide improved capability over the previous iteration, the Sentinel A3. It will outperform the legacy radar, delivering improvements in contested environments against cruise missiles, unmanned aerial systems, rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, and rocket, artillery, and mortar threats. This includes enhanced surveillance, detection, and classification capabilities to protect U.S. Army manoeuvre formations.
As part of the Army’s Indirect Fires Protection Capability, the Sentinel A4 radar connects with the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), one of the Army’s 35 signature modernisation initiatives. It’s all part of supporting the Army’s goal of multi-domain operations and ensuring that the US military distributes data across platforms to keep commanders aware of changing battlefield conditions.
