A Thales Raytheon Systems radar will help protect the airspace against low flying aircraft that might prove to threaten the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Monday February 11, 2002

Originally developed by Raytheon Company and officially known as the AN/MPQ-64, the sentinel is a three-dimensional radar used to automatically detect, track, classify, identify and report airborne targets. It is currently operational with U.S. Army active and reserve forces.

Concerned about possible terrorist threats from the air during the Olympics, the U.S. Customs Service and the Department of Defense (DoD) devised a plan to provide threat protection using a combination of FAA and DoD radars. FAA radars will cover high-flying aircraft out to an 80-mile radius around Salt Lake City. Sentinel radars will be used against potential low-flying aircraft targets.
This is the second time Sentinel has been called upon to support the Olympics. During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Sentinel detected 48 aircraft penetrating restricted airspace. The last time we were at the Olympics, it was during a time of relative stability, said Dr. Jim Beck, senior vice president Radar Products of Thales Raytheon Systems. We are proud that Sentinel has been selected to protect the air space over Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

metropolitan area. It has about 1,300 employees worldwide and predicted sales for 2001 of 650m euros/$600m Thales Raytheon Systems is an equally owned Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) and Thales (Paris: TCFP.PA and London: THS) transatlantic joint venture encompassing air defense/command and control centers and ground-based air surveillance and weapons locating radars. The enterprise, which began operations in June 2001, has operating subsidiaries in Fullerton, Calif., and in the greater ParisU.S.

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