The antennas were used to make radar and radio astronomical observations and to track satellites and planetary explorers.
The company also made radar and other electronic systems used in military aircraft, submarines, and munitions until it sold its defense electronics unit to Northrop Grumman Corporation in 1996.
That unit makes radar systems, radios and other equipment for boaters -- and, incidentally, is one of the few Raytheon divisions that makes consumer products.
The Radar story isn't the Ollie Ashley story though, and he's insistent that the team he's built around him the production assistants and studio managers, the designers and artists are what makes Radar tick.
The military industrial landscape includes Selex Galileo in north Edinburgh, which makes radar for Typhoon fighters; Vector Aerospace, which sustains 300 jobs repairing military helicopters; and QinetiQ, which employs 200 people in the Western Isles on its missile testing range.
Defense has always been a key contributor to the Connecticut economy, -- not just through dominant employers like Electric Boat, Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney, but also through medium-sized companies like Northrop Grumman Norden Systems, which makes radar for surveillance planes in Norwalk.
The rotation invariance of the SIFT features makes radar scans acquired from different headings straightforward to match.
The Raytheon Company said today that it had won a $1.4 billion subcontract from a fellow military contractor, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, to design and make radar equipment.
It last made radar contact around an hour and a half later, at 02 22, while flying over the Indian Ocean.
