Lockheed to Help Update Defense Communications By Patience Wait Special to The Washington Post
Monday, February 6, 2006; D04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020500829_pf.html In less than a week, Lockheed Martin Corp. won two key contracts for improving and expanding space-based communications systems for the military. On Jan. 27, the Air Force picked the Bethesda contractor to carry out the Mission Operations System contract for its space communications program. The contract is for 10 years and has an anticipated value of $2.1 billion. On Thursday, the Air Force awarded the company a contract, worth $491 million, to build a third spacecraft for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite system. The company already holds contracts for the initial two satellites. The contracts are elements of the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT), the Air Force's initiative to develop next-generation, space-based communications over the Global Information Grid, the Pentagon's voice, video and data network. The TSAT program would form a laser communications backbone in space carrying vast quantities of data at super-fast speeds. "TSAT will transition Defense Department communications programs into a single network with multiple satellite, ground and user segments," said Steve Tatum, a spokesman with Lockheed Martin's Space Systems division, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. He said the Missions Operations Systems contract is the ground-based segment. The contract will provide "the networking of satellite communications with the rest of the Global Information Grid," said Brig. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, director of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center's Military Satellite Communications Joint Program Office. The resulting system will significantly improve the sharing of "information amongst U.S. and multinational forces consistent with the tempo of war," said Keith Mordoff of Lockheed Martin's Integrated Systems and Solutions unit, based in Gaithersburg. Establishing a global network capable of connecting combat personnel to the Internet and to each other, with both the speed and bandwidth needed, is a key element of the military's transformation to "network-centric" warfare. The Transformational Satellite Communications System has been a point of contention between the military and Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have been frustrated that it has been behind schedule and over budget. The 2006 defense authorization bill passed by Congress cut planned spending on the program by almost half to $436.8 million. The contracts Lockheed won in recent days are for building blocks of the new satellite communications system. The company is also among contractors competing for the far larger prime contract that is expected to be awarded in 2007 for the Transformational Satellite Communications System. In the meantime, Lockheed is working under a contract worth about $514 million to conduct risk reduction and demonstrations on TSAT while the Air Force decides how to choose a single contractor, Tatum said. ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
