PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 21 Dec. 2006. The Boeing Co. in St. Louis won a maximum $8.9 million contract Dec. 15 for 104 Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS) Operational Test Program Sets (OTPS) for the U. S. Navy and the Kuwait.
CASS is a suite of general-purpose automatic test equipment performs functional tests, fault detection, and isolation of Navy aircraft avionics, repairable weapon assemblies, and shop repairable assemblies.
The contract also includes the manufacturing of 150 carts for the U. S. Navy OTPSs, and combines purchases for the Navy and Kuwait under the Foreign Military Sales Program.
CASS is produced in several versions that are designed for specific testing requirements: the hybrid version, and other CASS versions add capability to the Hybrid Station to test radio-frequency components, high power radar systems, electro-optics and communications/navigation/IFF systems.
Additional capabilities such as pneumatic function generation are provided through various ancillary equipment items. The newest member of the CASS family, Reconfigurable-Transportable CASS (RT-CASS), is being produced to support the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Special Operations Command V-22 tiltrotor aircraft, as well as Marine EA-6B, F/A-18, and AV-8B aircraft.
The various mainframe configurations of CASS contain five or six racks of test instruments integrated into a test system. To avoid obsolescence and allow upgrades for testing future weapon technologies, CASS uses a flexible hardware and software architecture.
The early blocks of CASS are approaching 17 years of service and Navy leaders are initiating a CASS modernization program to update the early stations and address obsolescence issues while adding the test capabilities required by forthcoming weapon systems.
Production on the modernized CASS, which will be named eCASS, will start in 2008. Work on the latest contract will be in St. Louis; Fort Walton Beach, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; and Madrid, Spain, and should be finished by May 2009. Awarding the contract is the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md.
