On Thursday, April 9, 2026, the U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC) at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, signed a contract worth 23,877,200 USD with Saab Inc. (part of Sweden’s Saab Defence and Security) for the procurement and delivery of Giraffe 1X three-dimensional radar systems.
Photo: Saab Defence and Security
The amendment to the earlier contract covers the purchase and delivery of 10 Saab Giraffe 1X radars to support partner capacity-building for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It increases the total nominal value of the base contract to 70,081,820 USD. The previous contract, dated September 29, 2025, and worth 46,204,620 USD, covered the production of these radars for Ukraine.
The work will be carried out at Saab Inc.’s facilities in East Syracuse, New York, with an estimated completion date of February 28, 2027. Full funding was obligated at the time the contract was awarded.
The Giraffe 1X three-dimensional radar provides high-quality target data for air defense, including drone detection and the ability to simultaneously detect and warn of rocket, artillery, and mortar attacks (C-RAM).
The radar’s active electronically scanned array, or AESA, antenna in gallium nitride (GaN) technology has a triangular cross-section, stands 0.5 m high and 1.0 m wide, and weighs 100 kg (60 kg for the antenna itself, plus the identification friend-or-foe system and rotary unit). Together with the other system components (the processing computer unit, power supply unit, and operator laptop), the total system weight is under 300 kg. Most electronic components are housed internally, and the entire system is air-cooled. Thanks to enhanced ELSS (Enhanced Low, Slow and Small) capabilities, it can identify small targets at longer distances more effectively. Its electronically shaped and steered antenna beam allows for very rapid scanning in elevation from 0 to 70°.
The radar is the land-based version of the naval Sea Giraffe 1X operating in the I/J band (from X to Ku; 8–12.5 GHz), with an instrumental range of up to 100 km. It is the smallest device of its type produced by Saab, and one of the smallest radars on the market.
In its baseline version, the Giraffe 1X made its public debut on September 10, 2019, during the DSEI (Defence and Security Equipment International) defense and security exhibition in London. It was integrated at the time with the British Army’s Supacat Jackal light reconnaissance vehicle. On May 2, 2023, Saab announced an order from the United Kingdom for 11 baseline systems.
On June 17–21, 2024, during the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris, an even more compact version of the radar called the Compact Radar Module was presented, and this is the version covered by the latest contract. Radars of this type have also become part of the MSHORAD air defense system with RBS 70 NG (Robotsystem 70 New Generation) launchers ordered by Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Sweden has also recently ordered these radars, both the Giraffe 1X (under contracts dated November 25, 2025, and December 23, 2025) and the Sea Giraffe 1X.