AN/SPY-1
Naval 3D PESA Aegis radar system

The AN/SPY-1 is a United States Navy passive electronically scanned array (PESA) 3D radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and is a key component of the Aegis Combat System. The system is computer controlled and uses four complementary antennas to provide 360-degree coverage. The system was first installed in 1973 on USS Norton Sound and entered active service in 1983 as the SPY-1A on USS Ticonderoga. The -1A was installed on ships up to CG-58, with the -1B upgrade first installed on USS Princeton in 1986. The upgraded -1B(V) was retrofitted to existing ships from CG-59 up to the last, USS Port Royal.
In accordance with the Joint Electronics Type Designation System (JETDS), the "AN/SPY-1" designation represents the first design of an Army-Navy electronic device for surface ship surveillance radar system. The JETDS system also now is used to name all Department of Defense electronic systems.
Description
The first production model of the SPY-1 series is SPY-1, which forms the baseline configuration of all subsequent SPY-1 radars. SPY-1A has four antenna arrays in two separate deckhouses, with each antenna array containing 148 modules. Each module contains up to 32 radiating elements and phase shifters, and modules are paired to form transmitting and receiving sub-arrays, which are grouped into 32 transmitting and 68 receiving arrays.
“AN/SPY-1” enters the record as naval 3D PESA Aegis radar system. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what SPY-1, Naval and PESA can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“AN/SPY-1” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, SPY-1, Naval and PESA provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1322778. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1983 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “AN/SPY-1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.