TRS delivers third radar system to Jakarta

JAKARTA, March 30 (UPI) -- ThalesRaytheonSystems has delivered a third air-defense radar station to Indonesia on schedule under a contract signed four years ago.

The radar passed its site acceptance test conducted for the Indonesian air force in February, a statement by TRS said.

Earlier this month it was commissioned in the presence of Air Chief Marshal Imam Suffat, chief of staff for the air force, who was accompanied by France's defense attache to Indonesia.

The first two air-defense radar systems were commissioned in March and November 2011, said TRS, a 50-50 joint venture created in 2001 in France by Thales and Raytheon.

All the radar systems are situated in remote locations in the eastern Indonesian archipelago and send data to the Sector Operation Center in Biak, a small island off the northern coast of Papua, an Indonesian province on the western extremity of New Guinea Island.

"The Indonesian air-defense radar program was challenging both from a technical and logistical perspective, with the installation of radar systems on islands in some of the most remote parts of Indonesia," Philippe Duhamel, chief executive officer of the French operations for ThalesRaytheonSystems, said.

What made the "ambitious" program possible was the long history of collaboration between TRS and Indonesia's air force and related government military departments, Duhamel said.

Their coordinated efforts "ensured the radars were operational on schedule."

For more than 30 years, TRS and Thales have provided air surveillance systems, a TRS statement said. Both companies have worked closely with the Indonesian software developer PT Ebdesk to develop, install and support long-range air-surveillance radars as well as national and regional command and control centers.

TRS is working with PT Ebdesk and electronics and telecommunications engineering business PT LEN Industri (Persero) to deliver the next radar station project.

As part of the contract, TRS will transfer radar manufacturing skills and knowledge to PT LEN Industri at its site in Bandung, the capital of West Java province and the country's third largest city.

ThalesRaytheonSystems specializes in air-defense systems, command-and-control systems, 3-D air-defense radar and battlefield and weapon locating radars. The company employs 1,600 people at its two subsidiaries in Fullerton, Calif., and in Massy, France.

TRS also works closely with NATO and in January signed a deal to roll out the Ballistic Missile Defense Interim Capability to operators in NATO's Air Command in Ramstein, Germany.

This interim capability will be the first increment of an interim Territorial Missile Defense capability, one of the topics for discussion at the NATO Chicago Summit in May, a TRS statement said.

"The world is facing an increasingly complex and growing array of security challenges at home and across the world," Jack Harrington, chief executive officer of ThalesRaytheonSystems, said at the time of the NATO deal, signed in Brussels.

"TRS is working in partnership with NATO and customers around the world to bring new technology, capabilities and business models for a smarter and more efficient procurement."