Northrop Grumman wins $12.4 million Army contract for SATCOM spectrum-monitoring gear
ROCK ISLAND, Ill., 17 Feb. 2014. Engineers at the Northrop Grumman Corp. Technical Services segment in Herndon, Va. will provide an important subsystem for a military global satellite communications (SATCOM) network under terms of a $12.4 million contract announced Friday.
Officials of the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Ill., are asking Northrop Grumman to provide Spectrum Monitoring Subsystem (SMS) pieces of equipment for six Army Remote Monitor Control Equipment (RMCE) locations around the world.
The SMS RF and microwave equipment is for use with the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) and Defense Satellite Communication System (DSCS) satellite constellations. The Army awarded the contract sole-source because officials consider Northrop Grumman to be the only responsible source for the SMS equipment.
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The SMS equipment is embedded in the Defense Enterprise Wideband SATCOM System (DEWSS), which provides strategic Army and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) SATCOM.
The DEWSS provides national and senior leader communications; Joint Chiefs of Staff validated command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) requirements; tactical reachback to home bases for deployed warfighters; and transport for important intelligence information transfer to deployed forces worldwide.
The SMS equipment is part of the management capabilities of the DEWSS, whose program managers are modernizing the DEWSS enterprise satellite terminals, baseband systems, and payload and network control systems required to support warfighter use of the high-capacity Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite constellation.
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DEWSS capabilities include super high frequency (SHF), beyond-line-of-sight communications; tactical reachback via DOD teleport and standardized tactical entry point (STEP) sites; survivable communications for critical nuclear command and control; and an anti-jam, high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) hardened, anti-scintillation capability for key strategic forces.
Management capabilities of the DEWSS include the common network management system (CNPS), wideband global spectrum monitoring system (WGSMS), wideband remote monitoring sensor (WRMS), remote monitoring and control equipment (RMCE), joint management operations system (JMOS), and the replacement frequency management orderwire (RFMOW).
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On this contract Northrop Grumman will do the work in Herndon, Va., and should be finished by February 2016. For more information contact Northrop Grumman Technical Services online at www.northropgrumman.com/AboutUs/BusinessSectors/TechnicalServices, or the Army Contracting Command Rock Island at www.acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc_ri.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
