Boeing

The Boeing Space and Communications Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) team has delivered a proposal to the U.S. Air Force for a multimillion-dollar contract to design and develop wideband satellite communications terminals that will provide the military with critical protected communications.

FAB-T is a Department of Defense (DoD) initiative to provide a multi-mission capable family of terminals that will utilize a common design, open system architecture to talk to different satellites. Terminals -- or radio systems with special purpose antennas -- enable information exchange between ground, airborne and space platforms. Boeing Space and Communications (S&C), a unit of The Boeing Company [NYSE:BA], is leading one of two industry teams competing for a six-year, $279 million system design and development contract, which will be managed by the MILSATCOM Terminals Office at Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

To meet the requirements set forth in the solicitation, Boeing has engaged in a broad architecture development activity, partnering with the nation's leading satellite systems, communications terminals and high performance data link system providers to provide a flexible, open architecture that can accommodate terminal upgrades and meet emerging technology requirements of the DoD.

Principal team members include Harris Corporation's Government Communications Systems division of Melbourne, Fla.; L-3 Communications' Communications Systems West division of Salt Lake City, Utah; TRW, Inc.'s Command, Control and Intelligence Division of Fairfax, Va.; and ViaSat, Inc.'s Communications Systems Group of Carlsbad, Calif. Program activity will be managed by Boeing's BMC3 & Strategic Systems business segment in Anaheim, Calif. with key support from Boeing Satellite Systems of El Segundo, Calif.

"Boeing has brought together the best that industry has to offer to provide a systems solution that will dramatically improve satellite communications for the strategic forces," said Allen Ashby, vice president and general manager of BMC3 & Strategic Systems.

"The Boeing team supports DoD space transformation objectives, and acknowledges FAB-T as a key building block of the integrated battlespace architecture. We are committed to making the FAB-T initiative a success."

The proposal submitted by the Boeing team represents the first increment of the multi-phase program, where the winning team will have sole responsibility for a six-year period of performance upon award in late June. The initial design period will be followed by the low-rate initial production phase scheduled to start in 2007 and the production phase scheduled to start in 2008. The system is expected to be fully operational by 2009.

Once operational, FAB-T will provide critical, protected beyond line-of-sight communications capability for warfighters via the new Advanced Extremely High Frequency (Advanced EHF) System, a new class of secure satellites that support military forces. In subsequent increments, FAB-T will enable interchange with other national satellite communications systems such as Wideband Gapfiller and Global Broadcast.