The PAC-3 MSE has been coupled with the LTADMS radar to demonstrate a 360-degree engagement capability for the U.S. Army’s modernized IAMD architecture.
The U.S. Army’s Patriot air defense system was tested with the PAC-3 MSE (Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement) missile and the LTADMS (Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor) radar to demonstrate a 360-degree coverage and engagement capability. The LTADMS radar is intended to replace the Patriot’s current radar.
The test
This was the ninth test flight event fusing Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 MSE and Raytheon’s LTADMS, as announced by both companies on Aug. 18, 2025. The test validated LTAMDS’s successful integration with the recently delivered Large Tactical Power Source (LTPS).
“The increased power provided by LTPS enables LTAMDS to reach its full battlespace potential,” Raytheon explained. The LTADMS’s “high capacity, full coverage” can help defeat massive, coordinated attacks including drones, advanced aircraft, as well as ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, says the company.
“LTAMDS’s 360-degree full-sector sensing capabilities specifically address massive, coordinated attacks from adversaries” said Tom Laliberty, president of Land & Air Defense Systems at Raytheon. Brian Kubik, vice president of PAC-3 Programs at Lockheed Martin, said the PAC-3 “continues to demonstrate advanced, reliable performance in increasingly complex operational environments [with] 360-degree engagement […] against threats from any direction.”
This follows the radar’s recent Milestone C, initiating the transition from prototype to production and deployment. However, both the firms have released only concept renditions of the test.
In a recent test, a PAC-3 MSE engaged a target using the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radar’s secondary sector for the first time. This test is a significant step forward in fielding 360-degree PAC-3 MSE engagement capability for the @USArmy. Read on: 🔽
— Lockheed Martin News (@LMNews) August 18, 2025
The U.S. Army released its own statement a few days earlier, saying that, during the test, LTAMDS detected, tracked and classified an air breathing threat surrogate target through the Integrated Battle Command System. The service explained this resulted in several program firsts, including the already mentioned first integration of the LTPS with LTAMDS, the first successful intercept of an air breathing threat using the LTAMDS secondary sector array and the first mission executed using IBCS low-rate initial production hardware.
“This test demonstrates the LTAMDS next evolution in capability growth towards delivering a state of the art 360-degree sensor for the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense architecture.” said Lt. Col. Farmer, LTAMDS product manager. “LTAMDS remains focused on developing and testing at the speed of relevancy in support of fielding a robust, all-around defense capability the warfighter needs to fight and win when called upon.”
Both the Army and the industry agree that this is a significant step toward fielding the service’s modernized Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) architecture. The Army’s next-generation air and missile defense capability will feature full 360-degree coverage and enhanced operational flexibility to defend against a wide range of aerial threats.
Increasing need for PAC-3 MSE
Defense One reported early in July 2025 that the Patriot was among the munitions the U.S. Army’s 2026 budget request sought more of, to increase its “magazine depth.” Quoting budget documents, the report said “the acquisition goal for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 MSEs would quadruple – from 3,376 to 13,773 – if Congress grants the Pentagon’s request.”
Raytheon’s Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) completes 360-degree flight test, demonstrating the radar’s full coverage capability to counter massive, coordinated attacks.
Details: https://t.co/DEbLWlewL6 pic.twitter.com/9kwA1hpApt
— RTX (@RTX_News) August 19, 2025
On Oct. 27, 2024, the U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a contract modification worth $752 million to increase the annual production of the PAC-3 MSE missiles from 550 to 650 units. The company then announced on Nov. 14, 2024 the U.S. Army contract, adding that, up until eight months in the run up to that award, it already recorded a 30% increase in PAC-3 production, with another 20% planned for next year, the release added.
By the end of that year, Lockheed said it would have produced 500 Patriot PAC-3 MSEs and the 2,000th PAC missile overall, adding the effort was “to meet the global demand” for the advanced missile. In the Army’s press release, Program Executive Officer Missile and Space Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano called the PAC-3 MSE “a key component” of the Army’s air defense strategy in EUCOM (European Command), CENTCOM (Central Command) and INDOPACOM (Indo-Pacific Command) with a high threat of ballistic and cruise missiles.
This is a reference to the war in Ukraine and the flare-ups in the Middle East over Israel, which have seen large volleys of Patriot missiles being expended to defeat Russian and Iranian projectiles. In the Pacific, efforts to upgun Guam with BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) capability before Chinese missilery are in full-swing. Thus, the mention of the INDOPACOM could mean the Patriot would be destined there to supplement the Standard Missile-3.
The Army’s November 2024 statement called the PAC-3 MSE an advanced, capable and versatile next-generation interceptor offering improved range, speed, and maneuverability against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft. Additionally, the PAC-3 MSE’s compatibility with existing Patriot launchers and its ability to be loaded in flexible configurations allows more tactically optimal placement and deployment.
Patriot upgrades and missile variants
The PAC-3 MSE, designated the MIM-104E, is the most advanced of the Patriot interceptors, which include the MIM-104D PAC-2 GEM (Guidance Enhanced Missile) series – GEM-C, GEM-T and GEM+. The PAC-3 was a near complete overhaul of the entire system, comprising the command and control (C2) system, now Link 16-compatible, and an advanced radio communications suite.
By 2017, the AN/MPQ-65 also received GaN transmitters, becoming the AN/MPQ-65A variant. The MIM-104E missile of the PAC-3 MSE program, which began in 2004, was distinguished by 180 tiny pulse solid propellant motors in the missile’s forebody for better maneuverability and a dual-pulse motor for a‘hit-to-kill’ capability. A new Ka-band active seeker independently acquires targets in its terminal phase without downlink guidance from the ground radar, improving its capability against fast moving ballistic missiles.
The PAC-3 MSE missile is compatible with the MEADS MFCR (Medium Extended Air Defense System Multifunction Fire Control Radar) to receive inputs from external sensors and operate with Allies. The U.S. Army accepted its first PAC-3 MSE interceptors in October 2015, declaring IOC (Initial Operational Capability) by August 2016.
MEADS and LTAMDS
Two known tests of the PAC-3 MSE with the MEADS were conducted in Nov. 29, 2012 and Nov. 6, 2013 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The former tested the MEADS radar’s full-perimeter, 360-degree coverage, with the PAC-3 MSE missile conducting a “unique over-the-shoulder maneuver to defeat the target attacking from behind the MEADS emplacement.”
In the November 2013 trial, the MEADS AMD (Air and Missile Defense) radar “intercepted and destroyed two simultaneous targets attacking from opposite directions during a stressing demonstration of its 360-degree capability,” according to the press release. All elements of the MEADS system were tested and “worked as planned” – including the 360-degree MEADS Surveillance Radar, a networked MEADS battle manager, two lightweight launchers firing PAC-3 MSE missiles and a 360-degree MEADS MFCR.
The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile uses #Boeing‘s seeker technology to intercept and destroy tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hostile aircraft through direct body-to-body impact. #SMDSymposium pic.twitter.com/WC8O9S2pEe
— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) August 8, 2018
The LTADMS program began with a October 2017 $383 million contract to Raytheon for an enhanced upgrade to the Patriot’s primary radar. The new system can attain 360 degree simultaneous detection and tracking of drones, cruise, ballistic missiles and aircraft from all directions, feeding that information to the Army’s broader IBCS (Integrated Battle Command System) architecture.
During a talk held by CSIS (Center for Security and International Studies) earlier this month, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James Mingus talked about the LTADMS’s capability: “It also goes from about 85 km up and 85 km out to 300 by 300 [kilometers]. So [it] greatly expands the range, the altitude, and it’s a 360.”
General Mingus: “The new LTAMDS [radar] is 360º. It also goes from about 85 kilometers up and 85 kilometers out to 300 by 300…So you could take those same 15 Patriot battalions we have today, give it IBCS and LTAMDS, and…it’s like immediately doubling that capability.” https://t.co/5t0N36WQAF pic.twitter.com/wYOPR5VhW8
— CSIS Missile Defense (@Missile_Defense) July 10, 2025
“So you could take those same 15 Patriot battalions we have today, give it [sic] IBCS and LTAMDS, and fundamentally when you operationally employ it, it’s, like, immediately doubling that capability,” added Mingus. “You would have the equivalent of about 30 Patriot battalions, because instead of having to deploy as batteries, you can break them up and disperse them in a much more tactical way.”
