Lockheed wins $3.3B Navy contract
A team led by Lockheed Martin will build a new generation satellite system to serve mobile and tactical users in all four services.
The Navy awarded a $3.3 billion contract today to a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new generation satellite system to serve mobile and primarily tactical users in all four services.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Co. were selected by the Navy in September 2002 to develop competing architectures and designs for the new satellite system.
The new satellite program, the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) will provide narrowband (64K) service to small, lightweight satellite terminals, as well as fixed shipboard terminals, according to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar) in San Diego, which managed the procurement.
MUOS is designed to replace the Navy's constellation of Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Follow-On satellites built under a contract awarded in July 1988 by Hughes Space and Communications, which is now Boeing Satellite Systems. The last UHF Follow-On satellite was launched in December 2003.
The MUOS satellites must be capable of supporting older terminals which accessed the UHF-Follow On birds as well as new satellite terminals which must be compliant with DOD Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) specifications. Raytheon estimated there are 49,000 terminals in DOD today which are capable of accessing the UHF Follow-On satellites.
Lockheed Martin's MUOS teammates include General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, Va. and Boeing Satellite Systems, El Segundo, Calif.
Raytheon's bidding team partners included Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla.; Northrop Grumman Astor Aerospace, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Science Applications International Corporation, Reston, Va.; ViaSat in Carlsbad, Caliph Space Systems/Loral, Palo Alto, Calif.
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