SELEX Galileo is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $9.2M contract from TKC Aerospace to upgrade the Customs and Border Protection C-550 Citation Tracker Aircraft with its Vixen 500E intercept radar and associated mission management system.
This contract is for the first two radars and mission management systems, with options for additional systems to upgrade the remainder of the fleet.
This success represents a further step into the US market for the SELEX Galileo E-Scan technology, following last year $32M contract extension for the next phase of the supply of the Seaspray 7500 E to the US Coast Guard for its HC-130 H fleet.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operates interceptor aircraft to detect, deter and mitigate threats to the United States homeland such as terrorists, acts of terrorism, drug smuggling and other unlawful movement of people, money, and goods across U.S. borders.
According to Patrick Geraghty, Executive Vice President Radar Systems for SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems US Inc, "This upgrade program will not only improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the C-550 Citation fleet, but it will lower life cycle support costs, primarily due to the order-of-magnitude improvement in system reliability compared with equivalent conventional radars. This contract confirms E-scan technology as a mission critical asset in highly demanding, long endurance, surveillance and intercept missions.
The Vixen 500E Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA) radar is the latest in affordable, high performance intercept radar from SELEX Galileo. Vixen 500E is a compact and versatile radar system intended to deliver real time situational awareness of the Air-Air and Air-Surface arenas.
It comprises two major LRUs: a modern processor/receiver and a state of the art AESA antenna. In addition to the intercept radar, under this contract SELEX Galileo will provide the mission management system that integrates the aircraft's sensors and allows the crew to control and display information critical to mission success.
