Cheyenne follow-on awarded

Air Force Officials awarded a $54.2 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. yesterday to continue updating systems inside Cheyenne Mountain, Colo.

The contract award marks the fifth option exercised under the billion-dollar Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) program. ISC2 updates the command and control system of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Strategic Command to be more interoperable and support the National Command Authority and the Canadian Chief of Defense Staff, according to an Oct. 6 Defense Department contract statement.

The ISC2 system warns of ballistic missile, aircraft, space and information attacks against North America. Officials in Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems business unit in Colorado Springs, Colo., must complete the work by December 2008, according to the statement.

Air Force officials turned on the first of three new computer systems earlier this year as part of the effort to update hardware and software at the base inside Cheyenne Mountain.

Flipping the switch of the Air Mission Release 1 system marked the first operational capability of the Air Force's 15-year, $1.5 billion ISC2 program. Service officials awarded the multiyear contract to Lockheed Martin in 2000.