Marine Corps expands radar portfolio in accordance with Force Design evolution

The Marine Corps has reorganized its radar systems portfolio to meet evolving force design goals, expanding the scope of a program office that was once focused solely on the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar to encompass multiple future expeditionary systems.

The former G/ATOR program office was redesignated as Program Manager for Expeditionary Radars (PM ExR) in September 2023 and now includes a few distinct “product lines,” including G/ATOR and a group of unnamed future radar systems, program official Mark Lamczyk said today at the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington.

In addition to G/ATOR, “the other product line is our future radar systems,” Lamczyk said. “I won't be speaking too much, deliberately, about that. But those are initiatives to achieve integrated air and missile defense [and] enabled integrated fire control, which are concepts in the commandant’s force design strategy.”

“Lastly, we do have a small portfolio of foreign military sales cases which are our former, legacy Marine Corps programs that are still out with our coalition partners that we support mainly with training and some sustained capability,” he added.

Gen. Eric Smith, who was confirmed by the Senate as Marine Corps commandant in September, has not publicly released an official Commandant’s Planning Guidance, though he has issued multiple interim guidance documents affirming the service’s force design trajectory.

Today, Lamczyk said the G/ATOR program is roughly halfway through full-rate production with contractor Northrop Grumman. The program office is placing increased focus on the sustainment of deployed systems and is looking for alternate producers of system components to aid in sustainment, he said.

Additionally, PM ExR is preparing to “recompete” an acquisition support contract in an effort to combine support work for G/ATOR and the future radar systems product line.

“I mentioned that we had two primary product baselines in the PM ExR and that's the G/ATOR and the future radars,” Lamczyk said. “Those are currently separate support contracts and we'll be releasing a [request for proposals] later this summer which combines those support contracts into one, overarching expeditionary radar acquisition support requirement.”

The office will publish the RFP in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 and plans to award the contract in the first quarter of FY-25, Lamczyk added.

The Marine Corps’ FY-2025 budget request includes $72 million for G/ATOR and anticipates full operational capability in FY-28.