Boeing

The Boeing Company [NYSE:BA] has organized a team of companies to pursue the United States Marine Corps Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S) program. Team members are leaders in defense and commercial industry with extensive expertise in systems engineering and integration, software and hardware development, battle management, and Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) architectures.

The CAC2S program will provide common software and hardware to support mission planning and execution for aviation command element operations while fully supporting interoperability requirements of joint, allied and coalition forces. Operational nodes will be adaptable to aviation mission and planning functionalities and will operate at sea, ashore and in the air.

The companies involved are:

• Boeing Autometric, Springfield, Va.
• BAE SYSTEMS, Rockville, Md.
• CSC, McLean, Va.
• Jaycor, San Diego, Calif.
• Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.
• SAIC, McLean, Va.

Boeing will lead the team and serve as the prime integrator. The company's heritage in systems integration extends across a broad range of Department of Defense and NASA programs. Boeing is responsible for integration on such programs as National Missile Defense and Airborne Laser.

"We believe the companies and individual people we have brought together will provide the optimized CAC2S solution for the U.S. Marine Corps," said Allen Ashby, vice president & general manager, Boeing Electronic Systems and Missile Defense.

"Each company on our team brings an expertise that is key to the development of an affordable transition from current stovepiped capability into a modern, highly mobile, flexible and scaleable capability."

A formal Request for Proposal for the Program Definition and Risk Reduction phase of the program is expected this month. Two competing teams are expected to receive awards with a further downselect scheduled in 2002 for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase.