Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division has completed five weeks of integrated test evaluations of the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system, the Navy announced Thursday.
"It's exciting to be able to test an actual system when you've been working on it for years," said Navy engineer Danny Mudd, G/ATOR program team lead and radar operations manager for the Sensor Software Engineering Branch at NSWCDD, in a Navy press release. "Having the radar in our backyard is a game changer and makes you really appreciate the work that we've done here and continue to do."
The Dahlgren Division, based in Virginia, performed interoperability testing with the G/ATOR system, preparing first by verifying the command's infrastructure functionality, including power accessibility, radar data recording abilities and data analysis capabilities.
The senior leadership and essential team leads conducted walkthroughs of safety protocols and complete range safety validations before live testing, according to the Navy.
The G/ATOR system, made by Northrop Grumman, is designed to detect low-observable targets with low radar cross sections such as rockets, artillery, mortars, cruise missiles and drones.
In June 2019 Northrop Grumman was awarded a $958 million contract to deliver 30 full-rate production G/ATOR systems for the Marine Corps.
