Missile defense experts at the Raytheon Co. will upgrade a long-range surveillance radar system in Taiwan. The current radar system has been in operation since early 2013 to help warn the island country of attacks from neighboring mainland China. Officials of the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., announced a $26.2 million contract to the Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems segment in Woburn, Mass., to upgrade the Taiwan Early Warning Radar Surveillance Radar system that sits atop Le Shan Mountain, Taiwan. Raytheon will upgrade the Taiwan missile warning system to address obsolescence concerns. The Taiwan early-warning radar is a surplus U.S. Raytheon AN/FPS-115 PAVE Phased Array Warning System (PAVE PAWS) radar sold to Taiwan in 2000 and activated in 2013. Raytheon engineers developed the AN/FPS-115 PAVE PAWS radar originally in the 1970s to detect and track incoming missile threats, particularly submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Much of the 40-year-old technology in this radar is obsolescent and needs upgrading.
