Raytheon is one of two companies that the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has asked to present best and final offers (BAFOs) for the airborne stand off radar (ASTOR) programme. ASTOR will provide the UK with long-range surveillance and targeting capabilities in the 21st century.
The system also has peacetime applications because it can manage non-military crises such as floods and earthquakes and monitor pollution incidents and the movement of refugees. In this respect the system requirements set out by the UK MoD are consistent with the UK government's new foreign policy that revolves around assuring international security.
The UK MoD has set out several stipulations regarding the system and its constituent parts that comprise the aircraft platform, radar system and ground system. For the system in general the MoD has stated that any solution should be interoperable with US and NATO systems, allowing for full co-operation in a crisis.

The aircraft platform

The UK MoD requires a system that can look deep into enemy terrain. Therefore it needs to be mounted on an air vehicle that has long endurance and a high-cruise altitude. Scope for future growth also will be important to enable the MoD to produce more powerful versions of the ASTOR system.
Raytheon has recognised the potential of Bombardier's Global Express® aircraft designed for long-range business use and special opera tions. It can operate from a wide range of airfields and has best-in-class altitude, range and mission endurance. Flying at over 50,000 feet enables the Global Express® to provide better synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and moving target indicator (MTI) visibility.

The radar system

The combination of SAR and MTI technologies is at the heart of the UK MoD's ASTOR requirement. It has stated that it will need a high-resolution, multi-mode capability radar with outstanding velocity and relocation accuracy. Hughes UK leads the Raytheon ASTOR radar team and GEC Marconi Avionics, Thomson CSF and the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) play key radar processing, manufacturing, integration and testing roles.
The Raytheon ASTOR team's SAR/MTI radar improves on the ASARS 2 system and balances advanced technology and low costs to deliver a low-risk, high-performance solution.

The ground system

The UK MoD requires the ASTOR ground system to be modular, transportable and have the capacity for advanced SAR/MTI exploitation. The ground station receives all imagery data and analyses and distributes it in near-real time to UK and NATO secure systems.
The Raytheon ASTOR ground-station team brings together industry leaders and benefits from their experience in the integration, testing and support of systems. Motorola leads the team that will assemble, integrate and test the equipment in the UK. Shelters will be provided by Marshall SV of Cambridge and assembled, integrated and tested by Raytheon Systems at Harlow. DERA Malvern has been instrumental in ensuring the success of the ground segment by providing advanced algorithms for image exploitation. Some algorithms will be hosted in the ground station rather than in the radar. Commercial image-processing technology is used in the Raytheon ASTOR team ground station and combined with proven operational, C31 and systems-integration experience, it will provide the UK MoD with a low-risk, high-performance ground station.
Companies presenting to the UK government for the ASTOR programme must show that their solution provides the best low-risk technology, that it is low in cost and that it has capacity for development.
Raytheon's ASTOR solution is low risk, meets the UK's needs, is affordable and has potential for adaptation. Also it makes the UK and ASTOR contenders for the NATO alliance ground surveillance programme. Raytheon's ASTOR solution has been designed after analysis of the UK's tri-service defence needs. Its modular nature means it can be adapted to meet future service requirements. The greatest non-military strength of Raytheon's ASTOR solution may be that UK industry is involved in design development and long-term production and support arrangements for ASTOR.
The ASTOR system has significant potential to develop the use of intelligence in the UK and across NATO. In an age of localised conflict ASTOR can provide unrivalled stand-off intelligence on enemy forces. In peacetime ASTOR contributes to the management of natural disasters and refugee situations, a factor no less significant for the international community than the provision of accurate military intelligence.