Boeing

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has been awarded a $107 million U.S. Air Force contract for an additional 15,452 Combat Survivor Evader Locator (CSEL) radios and supporting equipment.

The Air Force's third full-rate production CSEL order includes radio set and adapter spares, rechargeable batteries and battery adapters. The contract calls for delivery of all components by August 2009. To date, Boeing's Anaheim, Calif.-based CSEL team has delivered more than 12,000 CSEL units to the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

"Boeing's CSEL is the first military end-to-end system that provides multi-satellite, over-the-horizon communications and the latest-generation military Global Positioning System module in a small, rugged, lightweight hand-held unit," said CSEL Program Manager Mike Bates. "With CSEL, rescue teams can locate isolated personnel instantly. Within seconds of being grounded, the survivor-evader has the ability to press one button and provide his or her identification and location to a UHF base station."

CSEL is the U.S. Department of Defense's program of record for Combat Search and Rescue communications. With this contract award, the joint U.S. forces have ordered a total of 31,724 CSEL units. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Persian Gulf, has authorized Boeing's CSEL system for use in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Designed for easy use, the multifunction CSEL gives U.S. soldiers a cost-effective tactical advantage. Unique communication and message encryption techniques prevent signals from being intercepted or decoded. Using communications satellites and global positioning technology, CSEL radios save lives by providing real-time encrypted information about the precise location of isolated personnel such as downed pilots.

In addition to precise geopositioning information, the hand-held survival radios provide recovery forces and over-the-horizon joint search-and-rescue centers with two-way secure data communication capability. CSEL enables rescue forces to authenticate and communicate with isolated personnel in near-real time anywhere the world.