ThalesRaytheonSystems Co., a venture of Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co. and France’s Thales Group with its U.S. base in Fullerton, said Monday it was awarded a $217 million radar contract.
The contract with the Army is to build and test upgrade kits for ThalesRaytheon’s Firefinder radar, which protects troops from threats by locating enemy weapons.
The upgrades potentially could save the Pentagon more than $5 billion, extending the life of existing radar systems to the year 2030, the company said in a release.
The Firefinder has 11 international customers and is designed to locate hostile artillery, rockets and mortars for defense forces to return fire, according to the company.
Other recent contracts for ThalesRaytheon include $60 million worth of systems for the Air Force, a contract with Malaysia, as well as five other radar contracts worth $145 million.
The venture was formed in 2001 and has its roots in Hughes Aircraft Co., which in its heyday in the 1980s counted 12,000 workers in Fullerton.
Raytheon’s Fullerton operation has about 2,000 workers and added hundreds of them over the past few years as it was awarded contracts.
Last summer it announced it was expanding with a lease for 78,000 square feet of space in Brea, and was looking to add more than 100 workers.
