IN Brief:
- Dynetics has received $40.8 million to manufacture and support 14 MRADR production-representative systems.
- The programme also funds retrofit work on four MRADR prototypes and four Marine Expeditionary Long Range Persistent Sensor systems.
- Delivery through August 2028 expands the radar programme beyond prototype development while building its software, logistics, and depot-support structure.
Dynetics has received a $40.8 million US Marine Corps modification to manufacture, deliver, and support 14 production-representative Medium Range Air Defense Radar systems, expanding the programme beyond the four prototypes ordered during its initial development phase.
The hybrid other-transaction agreement modification also covers depot-level technical-manual support, programme management, engineering-change proposals, logistics and software support, and retrofit work on four earlier MRADR prototypes and four Marine Expeditionary Long Range Persistent Sensor systems.
Most of the work will take place in Huntsville, Alabama, which accounts for 87.5% of the programme, with the remaining 12.5% in Woodlake, California. The maximum value is $40.78 million and work is scheduled to finish in August 2028.
The description of the new radars as production-representative systems is important. The Marine Corps is ordering hardware intended to reflect a deployable production configuration closely enough for broader evaluation and field use, but the contract is not described as an unrestricted full-rate production award.
MRADR reached its current acquisition path through a $32 million contract announced in 2023 for four prototype systems. Leidos said at the time that its Dynetics team would lead development of the sensors, building on earlier Marine Expeditionary Long Range Persistent Sensor work and research conducted through the Office of Naval Research.
The September modification keeps that development lineage intact. Rather than leaving the original prototypes and MELPS equipment behind as engineering artefacts, the Marine Corps is funding retrofit work on eight earlier systems while adding 14 production-representative radars.
That approach can reduce configuration fragmentation as the programme grows. Hardware, software, manuals, spares, and engineering support become more difficult to manage when prototype fleets retain one baseline and newer systems move to another. Retrofitting earlier equipment provides a route to bring more of the fleet towards a common configuration.
Software support and engineering-change proposals are explicitly included in the award, reflecting the fact that a radar’s usefulness depends on more than its antenna and transmitter. Track processing, interfaces, command-and-control connections, diagnostics, cybersecurity, and operator functions all continue to evolve as the sensor enters a wider air-defence architecture.
The Marine Corps has been testing MRADR as an expeditionary system rather than a fixed-site radar. During a July 2025 evaluation at Twentynine Palms, Marines rigged the system for both dual- and single-point helicopter sling loads under a CH-53E Super Stallion and conducted manoeuvre and speed testing with the radar carried externally.
The aircraft reached 105 knots during that evaluation. Marine Corps reporting said the work was intended to advance the certification process for helicopter sling delivery, with engineering teams examining lift stability, weight distribution, attachment points, and the technical data required for formal rigging procedures.
Air transportability imposes constraints that do not exist to the same degree for a permanently installed sensor. The radar, power equipment, support hardware, and structural interfaces have to tolerate handling and external lift while remaining quick enough to move for an expeditionary force whose air-defence sites may not stay in one place for long.
Those mobility requirements feed back into production engineering. Prototype equipment can depend on specialist technicians and one-off procedures, while a production-representative system needs repeatable assembly, documented lifting points, maintainable subsystems, controlled software, and manuals that operational units can use without the original development team standing beside the radar.
Depot-level technical documentation in the new award is therefore part of the transition towards sustained use. A fielded radar fleet needs defined repair boundaries, diagnostic procedures, replaceable components, spares planning, and configuration records that allow maintainers to identify exactly which hardware and software baseline they are supporting.
The same applies to logistics. Four prototypes can be supplied through development channels, but a larger fleet requires predictable flows of replacement parts, test equipment, software updates, and engineering support. The 14 new systems will expose those processes to a scale that the original prototype programme could not reproduce.
The Marine Corps has described MRADR as another layer in its growing expeditionary air-defence capability alongside systems such as Medium Range Intercept Capability and Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System. The radar itself is a sensor rather than an interceptor, so its operational value depends on how effectively its tracks and status information can feed the wider command-and-control architecture.
By August 2028, the programme should have evidence from a materially larger set of systems covering not only radar performance but manufacturing repeatability, mobility, software support, maintenance, logistics, and operator use. That evidence will be more useful for later production decisions than prototype performance alone.
The $40.8 million modification takes MRADR into that intermediate industrial stage. Dynetics now has to show that the design can be manufactured and supported as a controlled fleet of production-representative systems, while the Marine Corps brings earlier hardware closer to the same baseline instead of allowing the programme to split into disconnected generations.
