Lockheed Martin Corp.’s newly opened $16 million radar test facility on its Electronics Parkway campus is a heavily insulated facility, actually a building inside a building. The inner test building will be mostly empty, except for radar equipment and the equipment to test and protect it. It is isolated from its shell building to reduce vibration and electrical transmission. Elaborate cooling and fire retardant systems are set up around the inner building.The inner test building, or anechoic chamber, has an 80-foot ceiling and doors big enough to drive a truck through. It is fully lined with 55,000 four-foot-long foam cones to absorb stray radio waves. The two radar systems to be initially tested include the Medium Extended Air Defense System, a combined radar and missile defense system being developed by the U.S., Germany and Italy for use by NATO countries. The other is called Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long Range Radar, that is expected to be used by the Air Force and possibly, the Marines. Both systems are still in development.
Lockheed Opens Radar Test Facility in Liverpool Campus
