Defense Procurement News

The US Army awarded TeleCommunications Systems (TCS) a sole-source ID/IQ delivery order contract for tactical satellite communications systems. See a press release here. If all options are exercised the contract could be worth up to $246 M. TCS builds small, portable systems based on its proprietary software. The systems are configurable for man pack or vehicle mounts and will initially be used by Special Forces, but could be supplied to other Army and Defense organizations.

Boeing won a contract to develop the bankrupt Iridium communication satellites for DoD. See an article here. Iridium is a network of low earth orbit satellites that were to be used to provide telephonic communication. Motorola had led the original consortium that put the satellites in orbit, but they company went bankrupt. The Navy Research Lab awarded Boeing a contract to exploit the Iridium satellites to support the GPS network already deployed. DoD has been using the satellites for communications purposes, along with commercial customers.

General Dynamics as part of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite base communication network installed the antennas for the first of four groundstations. See a press release here. MUOS will provide a cell phone like communication system through satellites. It will eventually have four ground stations with the first being in Hawaii. This system continues the US focus on upgrading communications through more use of satellites.

CNNMoney has a preview of the upcoming earnings report for a variety of US defense contractors. See this for more. Not surprisingly the outlook is good. The US defense budget remains large and will probably not see any downturn until 2010 at the earliest depending on the US election. Rockwell Collins reported yesterday and they came in with 24% improvement over last quarter. See the press release here.

This blog post describes the recent launch of the Skynet-5C communications satellite on an Ariane Space Launch Vehicle. Paradigm is the company that manages the Skynet system for the British Ministry of Defense. In the movie The Terminator, of course, the super C3I system that decides to wipe out the humans was called Skynet. There has been a running joke that someday a system like Skynet will be built and take appropriate action on the people it serves.

Lockheed was awarded the GPS III contract. See a story here. The contract is for two satellites with 10 options. It is worth $1.46 B. Boeing loses another major contract. Boeing is building some GPS II satellites with the first planned for launch this year. Lockheed has also built GPS satellites in the past.

According to this article the Air Force is expected to award the GPS III contract this week following a successful DAB a few weeks ago. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in the running, and some are inevitably expecting a protest by the loser. Lockheed Martin won most of the GPS II work and Boeing did some of the original satellites. One hopes that the USAF acquisition people have their ducks in a row on this one as there last two major awards have been protested, and one, CSAR-X, successfully.

The GPS III satellite had a successful DAB recently which allowed Mr. Young, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (OSD(AT&L) to allow the contract award. See an article here. As part of this authorization, though, he directed that the requirements be frozen as to what was presented at the DAB. The contract could be worth $1.8 B, and will go to either Boeing or Lockheed Martin. The award could come early next week.

Northrop Grumman won a contract to continue the integration and updating of US Air Force weather systems. See The Washington Post here. Northrop won a recompete as the incumbent, a position they gained by buying TRW. The contract could be worth $239 M in the end.

Orbital Systems won a contract from DARPA for research with the F6 satellite program. See the press release here. DARPA is trying to develop, through this program, a more flexible way of linking modules of space craft to allow greater flexibility in their configuration.