Boeing Awarded Contract to Build Third Wideband Gapfiller Satellite

Each WGS satellite provides the United States and its allies with increased space-based communications capability that augments current Defense Satellite Communications System, or DSCS, and Global Broadcast Service operations.

The WGS is a key military satellite communications, or MILSATCOM, program being weaved into a Boeing integrated battlespace where real-time information is quickly and simultaneously made accessible to platforms, forces and commanders on the ground, at sea and in the air.

"Boeing is honored and very excited to have the opportunity to provide a third WGS satellite for the Air Force," said Randy Brinkley, president of Boeing Satellite Systems, the satellite-manufacturing arm of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.

"The WGS satellites will provide an enormous leap forward in satellite communications capability for the U.S. and allied forces, beginning with the first launch in mid-2004."

Boeing received funding to build the first two satellites in January 2002 for launches scheduled in 2004. The third satellite is scheduled to launch in 2005. The WGS contract includes options for as many as six Boeing 702 satellites and associated spacecraft and payload ground control equipment that is jointly funded with the U.S. Army. With the current option for the WGS F3 satellite, the total value of the contract is now approximately $660 million.

More than 1,000 people at Boeing's integrated satellite factory in El Segundo, Calif, anchor the Boeing team building the WGS. Additional Boeing resources from around the country and many key suppliers, including Spectrolab in Sylmar, Calif.; ITT in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Raytheon in Aurora, Colo.; Northrop Grumman Information Technology in San Pedro, Calif.; and Harris in Palm Bay, Fla., also support the program.

"The Boeing 702-based WGS is an exceptional platform that can evolve, with significant added capabilities, to cost-effectively provide military users with near-term transformational communications capabilities," said Richard H. Johnson, WGS program director at Boeing.

"These enhancements would satisfy the rapidly changing needs of the military's communications architectures, including providing additional connectivity for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance from unmanned vehicles."

Found this:

USAF Awards $472 Million Deal For Transformational Comms Program

SPACEWAR

USAF Awards $472 Million Deal For Transformational Comms Program

TCM represents the next step toward transitioning the Department of Defense wideband and protected communications satellite architecture into a single network comprised of multiple satellite, ground, and user segment components. The system will network mobile warfighters, sensors, weapons, communications command and control nodes located on UAVs, piloted aircraft, on the ground, in the air, at sea or in space. TCM is one of several elements that make up the Transformational Communications architecture that the national security space community has developed over the last two years.

Sunnyvale - Jan 27, 2004
A joint Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman team has been awarded one of two industry contracts valued at approximately $472 million to enter the Risk Reduction and System Definition phase of the U.S. Air Force's Transformational Communications MILSATCOM (TCM) Space Segment. TCM will provide thousands of users with significantly improved, highly mobile, beyond line-of-sight protected communications to support the future battlefield.

Under the contract awarded today by the MILSATCOM Joint Program Office, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, at Los Angeles AFB, Calif. Two industry teams will conduct risk reduction demonstrations and system trade studies over a 27-month period. This effort will culminate with a multi-billion dollar development contract to be awarded to a single contractor in 2006.

"This contract will give our team the opportunity to demonstrate the maturity of our technologies and define a system that optimizes the various features of TCM so that we are prepared to move into the next phase of the program, said Rick Skinner, vice president, transformational communications for Lockheed Martin. "We stand ready to support the MILSATCOM community on this important initiative and look forward to delivering a TCM solution that provides the protected, wireless, over-the-horizon extension of the Global Information Grid."

The Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman team also includes Rockwell Collins, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, L-3 Communications, Stratogis, Cisco, C&H Associates, and ViaSat in an effort to bring together industry leaders and expertise in all aspects of the end-to-end architecture. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif. Will serve as the prime contractor and systems integrator for the TCM Space Segment. Northrop Grumman will provide the satellites' transformational payloads, end-to-end communication systems engineering, and payload ground processing.

"The investments made over the past decade by our team and the U.S. Government in technologies like laser communications and routing processors will enable warfighter access to a secure, protected, global broadband network, eliminating bandwidth as an operating constraint, " said Stuart Linsky, program manager, transformational communications at Northrop Grumman. "This contract will provide us the means to implement these critical technologies in space near the end of this decade."

SPACEWAR

Northrop Grumman Receives Milsatcom Network Study Contract

Reston - Jan 19, 2004
The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Command has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation's Mission Systems sector a contract to define the requirements needed to build a communications network for military, intelligence and space agencies. The Transformational Communications MILSATCOM (TCM) network, which will be based on a single, overarching communications architecture, will transform the way the Pentagon conducts its military operations.

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January 27, 2003

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