DHS awards Northrop Grumman contract for improved first responder wireless
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. a contract to provide support engineering to help improve first responder communications. Northrop Grumman’s Information Technology (IT) sector will assist the DHS in developing five-year wireless communications requirements for the public safety community. This assistance will inform the effort to refine the quantitative requirements of the public safety community as articulated in the Public Safety Statement of Requirements (SoR) for Communications and Interoperability, Volume II, Version 1.0. This document provides detailed quality of service methods of measurement for the applications and services identified in Volume I of the Public Safety SoR. In addition, SoR Volume II provides network parameters that specify the minimum acceptable performance of public safety communications systems carrying these applications and services. “These requirements will help ensure interoperable communications between public safety agencies at all levels of government in the event of major emergencies,” says Wood Parker, president of Northrop Grumman IT’s Intelligence group. Additionally, as part of this contract, Northrop Grumman will be specifically focused on requirements for mission-critical voice communications and jurisdictional area networks. Northrop Grumman’s teammate on this contract is Catalyst Communications Technologies, Inc., in Forest, Va.
BAE Systems provides flight-line support for F-16 fighters
BAE Systems in Fort Worth, Texas, received a $9.6 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide 41 next-generation Stores System Testers (SST) to support the F-16 Falcon fighter. The SST is a next-generation flight-line and stores management system tester that replaces the currently fielded stores management test sets. The test sets will provide increased test capability and easier operation and maintenance, and are smaller than existing systems. The SST, which can be adapted to any weapon platform, provides flight-line and test and diagnostics capabilities for the stores management system and the various rails, launchers, guns, and pylons that comprise the F-16 weapons system. To date, BAE Systems has delivered 38 Stores System Testers to various F-16 foreign military sales and direct customers. Work will be performed at the company’s facilities in Merrimack and Nashua, N.H., and Fort Worth, Texas.
Boeing selected for U.S. Army World-Wide Satellite Systems program
The U.S. Army selected Boeing in St. Louis as one of six contractors to provide satellite communications systems and services for the World-Wide Satellite Systems program under a five-year, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract valued at as much as $5 billion. The contract calls for six satellite terminal types, operating on a variety of military and commercial satellite bands, including C, Ku, X, and Ka, and services for satellite operation and sustainment. The six types include combat support service very small aperture terminal (VSAT); fixed station satellite terminal; flyaway VSAT satellite terminal; military certified satellite terminal; prime mover/trailer mounted satellite terminal; and deployable satellite earth terminal. Advanced Information Systems, a unit of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, will provide satellite communication systems, as well as engineering and support services, that provide commercial and tactical beyond-line-of-sight communications. Boeing’s solution will support current systems and strategic satellite communications to sustain a flexible baseband, while offering continuous technological improvements in performance, logistics supportability, reliability and maintainability.
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems completes First AN/SSX-1 production contract
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Arlington, Va., has delivered ten AN/SSX-1 systems for the U.S. Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP). The AN/SSX-1 electronic warfare system supports a variety of missions including maritime interdiction operations against weapon, chemical, and drug smuggling. These missions are accomplished by collecting precision electronic parametric data and correlating it to specific transmissions from ships and aircraft. Once installed, the system will be the SEWIP program’s first capability delivered to the Navy Fleet to aid in homeland defense. The AN/SSX-1 system was awarded to General Dynamics as a contract modification to the Naval Sea Systems Command’s systems integrator efforts for SEWIP and consisted of ten units incrementally delivered from March through June 2006. The production effort included integration and calibration of subsystems, acceptance testing and final product delivery. Total value of the program is $3.2 million. SEWIP is a spiral-development upgrade and replacement program for the AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare system aboard several classes of Navy combatant ships. This system has been the primary electronic warfare and anti-ship missile defense system since the early 1980s.
SAIC announces membership on Lockheed Martin team for the Secure Border Initiative program
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in McLean, Va., announced that it is a member of the Lockheed Martin team competing on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Secure Border Initiative Program (SBInet) contract. SBInet is expected to be a six-year, multibillion-dollar program. The SBInet proposal calls for a comprehensive multiyear plan that will enhance U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s ability to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal immigration. The Lockheed Martin-led team submitted its proposal for the contract on May 30 and DHS was expected to make a decision on the award of the contract last month. SAIC lends its expertise to Lockheed Martin’s team in the area of integrated information operations in hostile environments and has in-depth understanding of the Department’s enterprise architecture. The goal of the program will be to transform border-control technology and infrastructure by integrating multiple state-of-the-art systems.
Raytheon awarded Air Force contract for Space Situational Awareness Improvements demonstration
The U.S. Air Force awarded Raytheon a $950,000 contract to demonstrate improvements to space situational awareness. The program will significantly contribute to determining the approach for accomplishing the Air Force’s mission of being able to identify, track and determine the behavior of all space objects in earth orbit. Under the contract, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) will conduct simulations to assess the information fusion technology and architecture and study the integration of this capability with available space surveillance and intelligence systems. The Object Centric Intelligent Agents technology demonstrations, as the program is known, will be conducted at the Air Force Maui High Performance Computing Center through July 2008. The demonstration phase will validate a significant upgrade to the nation’s space situational awareness capability and position Raytheon as the systems integrator for development.
Singapore Airlines selects Honeywell to provide next-generation weather radar
Officials at Singapore Airlines (SIA) selected next-generation weather radar from Honeywell in Phoenix, Ariz., for the airline’s 19 new Boeing 777-300ERs. Available for air transport aircraft, the Honeywell RDR-4000 Next Generation wind shear/weather radar system continuously scans the aircraft’s horizon at ever-changing tilt angles to build a three-dimensional digital image of weather and terrain ahead. The system offers real-time analysis of weather hazards based on the aircraft’s flight path. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in September 2006. “Adverse weather is a factor in one-third of all aircraft accidents and turbulence is the leading cause of in-flight injuries to passengers and crews,” says Garrett Mikita, vice president, Honeywell Airline Business Segment. “With RDR-4000, pilots can detect turbulence and hazardous weather conditions earlier and reroute the plane’s flight path if needed, saving time and operational expenses.” To remove ground clutter, the RDR-4000 has an internal terrain database, adapted and scaled from Honeywell’s Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS).
Rockwell Collins avionics fly on Army Reconnaissance Helicopter
The U.S. Army’s new Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH)-the Bell ARH-70A-produced by Bell Helicopter and equipped with the Rockwell Collins Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS)-successfully completed its first test flights on July 20. The flights took place from Bell’s Arlington, Texas XworX facility. The flights delineate the ARH program as one of the fastest “contract-to-flight” programs ever completed and set a new standard for such acquisitions, Rockwell officials say. The program is valued at approximately $130 million. The ARH-70A cockpit is based on Rockwell Collins’ CAAS, which is also being installed in the U.S. Army’s Special Operations and CH-47F fleets and is in the early integration phase for the Army’s UH-60M fleet. The system incorporates common, reusable processing elements in each piece of hardware, and employs an open-systems architecture based on commercial standards. The commonality of hardware and software components is expected to provide lower total lifecycle cost and lower costs for technology insertion and supportability. The cockpit features two Rockwell Collins’ active-matrix liquid-crystal multifunction displays, control display units, as well as helmet-mounted displays and general-purpose processing units.
