Data Bytes

TeleCommunication Systems, a provider of missioncritical wireless communications, has teamed with Booz Allen Hamilton to provide the Army Information Technology Agency (ITA), the technology component of the Office of the Administrative Secretary of the Army, with a broad range of information technology professional services. The primary mission of the ITA is to provide information technology support to the Department of Defense military organizations in the Pentagon and throughout the National Capital Region. As sub-contractor, TCS currently has received orders totaling $1.25 million. Booz Allen and TCS are supporting the ITA with enterprise architecture related services including project management, information assurance, call center services, financial asset management support, DoD directory support, Website development, Website management, wireless support, billing and budget support, continuity of operations, engineering support and IT implementation.

Vehicle Adapter Amplifiers Delivered for Tactical Air Control

ENCORE II Order Seeks Web-Based Performance DashboardThe Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) has awarded a task order to AnviCom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Command Information, to provide support to the Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) Information Technology Management Directorate. This contract was awarded via DITCO’s ENCORE II contract vehicle. Under the terms of the task order, AnviCom will implement a Web-based performance dashboard solution. AnviCom is responsible for providing metrics analysis, systems analysis, as well as recommendation and system implementation support, for the implementation of the online Web-based performance dashboard. The company will provide requirements analysis, market research and prototyping, product integration, test and evaluation, and operations support. AnviCom is one of 12 prime contractors under the small business set-aside portion of ENCORE II, which has a ceiling value of $12.2 billion.

Vehicle Adapter Amplifiers Delivered for Tactical Air Control

Thales Communications has completed the delivery of multiple orders for its new 50-watt dual vehicular adapter/power amplifier to the Air Force‘s Tactical Air Control Party Modernization Office (TACP-M) at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. The Air Force procured more than 700 units of the 50-watt AN/VRC-111 Vehicle Adapter Amplifier (VAA), which is a two-channel system with software-defined radio flexibility. It provides 50 watts of power in the 30 to 88 MHz frequency range and 20 watts of power in the 90 to 512 MHz frequency range. As part of these orders, Thales also delivered more than 200 of its 20-watt AN/VRC-111 systems, which provide 20 watts of power across the full 30 to 512 MHz frequency range. Each VAA incorporates two AN/PRC-148 JTRS Enhanced Multiband Inter/ Intra Team Radios and provides the unique capability of rapid, cable-free radio dismount in less than two seconds. Shifting between mounted and dismounted operations with no loss in communications is critical to TACP survival. Most of the VAAs will be installed in TACP’s new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and in their already fielded AN/GRC-206 communications pallets, where they will be used as an interim replacement for existing legacy radios.

Joint Exercise to Feature Tactically Unbreakable COMSEC

The Air Force Global Cyber Integration Center (GCIC) has selected Tactically Unbreakable COMSEC (TUC) as a technology initiative for full-scale evaluation during Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX) 2009. The JEFX series is designed to test and evaluate advanced and disruptive technologies currently under consideration for broad deployment across the Department of Defense, and to rapidly transition enhanced capability to the battlefield. GCIC teams with major commands, joint and coalition partners, national agencies, industry and academia to develop, integrate and standardize air, space and cyberspace components. The TUC product will be used to encrypt air-to-air, air-toground, and ground-to-ground data transmissions and to secure data at rest. TUC was selected because of its disruptive ability to use dynamically reconfigurable logic to encrypt at very high speed large volumes of data and to close critical warfighter capability gaps. TUC is one of 14 different technologies that were selected to participate in this exercise series. The overall communications architecture includes TUC installations on airborne strategic and tactical platforms, CAOC desktops and network connections between remote sites. TUC is a product of Advanced Communications Concepts Inc. (ACCI) McLane Advanced Technologies and ACCI have entered into a strategic business alliance to market and deploy TUC encryption devices and associated derivative technologies.

Award Supports Deployment of Wideband Global SATCOM Terminals

The Army has awarded DataPath $100 million to manufacture and integrate Ka band conversion kits and provide spares kits that will enable DataPath Satellite Transportable Terminals and other systems on the battlefield to operate using the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) system. The SATCOM terminals being converted were designed and built by DataPath and deployed by the Army for the Joint Network Node (JNN)/Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program. With all options exercised over a base year and three option years, the agreement could total as much as $225 million for DataPath. The WGS system, with its first satellite launched in October 2007, increases the high-bandwidth communications capacity available to support U.S. military operations worldwide by adding Ka and X band capacity to supplement limited military X band and commercial Ku band. This will be the first deployment of large numbers of WGS-capable, Ka band SATCOM terminals for the JNN/WIN-T program.

Joint IP Modem to Be Modified for Global Broadcast Service

ViaSat has received a contract modification from the Army, via contract prime Globecomm Systems, to modify the Joint Internet Protocol Modem (JIPM) to enable it to operate as the network-centric modem for the Global Broadcast Service (GBS), which broadcasts IP-based, real-time video and large data files, similar to a multicast service such as direct-to-home satellite television, for U.S. military mission support. ViaSat is under contract to make the JIPM compatible with GBS and Defense Information Systems Agency specifications by adding Flow Control and Multicast IP filtering to efficiently flow one-way data packet traffic and prevent sending duplicate receive data to the GBS network. ViaSat is also incorporating GBS requirements to achieve new size, weight and power performance for the modem. With the first Ka-band Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite now in service, GBS has added WGS to its broadcast network. As part of that move, ViaSat is working to accelerate the expansion of the service by enabling the standard JIPM to simultaneously operate as a two-way modem and GBS receiver. GBS has typically relied only on GBS-dedicated terminals similar to direct-to-home set-top boxes.

Traveling Wave Tubes Enhance Airborne Communications

L-3 Electron Technologies has received combined orders totaling nearly $1 million for the development of a high-efficiency (greater than 50 percent) 600W Ka-band communications helix traveling wave tube (TWT). The orders, which will help enhance Air Force airborne platform communications technology, were placed by two Air Force Research Laboratory contractors. L-3 Electron Technologies is a leading provider of space-qualified TWT, EPC and TWTA products and electric propulsion systems as well as high-performance TWTs for surface and airborne satellite communications uplink, radar, electronic warfare and instrumentation applications. ♦
 

* Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

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