{"id":16206,"date":"2026-09-18T11:14:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=16206"},"modified":"2026-09-18T14:40:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:10:56","slug":"patriot-air-defence-missile-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/patriot-air-defence-missile-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriot Missile System"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Patriot Missile System Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lockheed Martin recently announced it received a shipment of critical components from General Motors for Patriot interceptors, emphasizing the urgency to ramp up production amid ongoing international conflicts. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Patriot Missile System<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patriot, short for <\/span><b>Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u200bis a mobile <\/span><b>surface-to-air missile defense system.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was originally developed by<\/span><b> U.S. weapons maker Raytheon Technologies.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system can <\/span><b>intercept aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles, and cruise \u200bmissile<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s, depending on the interceptor used.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>United States Army\u2019s most advanced air defense system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system was first used in combat during the 1991 Gulf War, with batteries protecting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel, and later used during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Nineteen \u200bcountries now operate<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Patriot system, including the <\/span><b>U.S., Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Qatar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Patriot Missile System <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Patriot battery (i.e., the basic firing unit) consists of a phased array radar, an engagement control station, computers, power generating equipment, and up to eight launchers, each of which holds four ready-to-fire missiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are about 90 soldiers assigned to a battery, but three soldiers in the engagement control station are the only personnel required to operate the battery in combat.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is equipped with a <\/span><b>track-via-missile (TVM) guidance system.<\/b> <b>Midcourse correction commands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are transmitted to the guidance system from the mobile engagement control centre.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system&#8217;s radar has a<\/span><b> range of over 150 km<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and can <\/span><b>simultaneously track <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">up to <\/span><b>100 potential targets.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system has different capabilities depending on the type of interceptor used.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>PAC-2 interceptor <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">uses a <\/span><b>blast-fragmentation warhead,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> while the newer <\/span><b>PAC-3 missile <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">uses more advanced<\/span><b> hit-to-kill technology.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Depending on the version<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in use, the interceptor missiles can <\/span><b>reach an altitude of more than 24 kilometers.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.devdiscourse.com\/article\/business\/3978532-lockheed-martin-and-gm-defense-fast-track-patriot-interceptor-components\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>DEVD<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Patriot Missile System is the U.S. Army&#8217;s most advanced system for intercepting enemy aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles. Read more about Patriot Missile System, Features, Range, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":125047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10335,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-16206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-patriot-missile-system","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125087,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16206\/revisions\/125087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}