News From Washington

ITT Industries Win $77 M Contract

ITT Industries Inc. has been awarded a $77 M firm fixed price contract to provide operations and maintenance support to the US Military Command and Control Switching System (CCSS) at 19 locations in five countries worldwide. ITT will provide support at a variety of critical locations, such as the White House in Washington, the US Air Force-Europe headquartered in Ramstein, Germany, and the US Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The work will be performed by ITT's System Division.

CCSS provides switching capabilities in support of the Defense Red Switch Network, a high level communication system that allows authorized users to transmit critical, sensitive and classified information in a completely secure environment.

With this win, ITT becomes the premier provider of this service to the US Military. The company currently operates and maintains Red Switches on the Wings Communications Operations and Maintenance, and Operations, Maintenance and Supply-Europe projects and has recently been tasked to operate and maintain another switch in Kuwait as a Total Army Communications-Southwest Asia (TAC-SWA) contract.

For further information, contact: Ted Wright, ITT Industries Inc. (719) 637-5745.

US Army Awards Harris Corp. $222 M Production Contract

Harris Corp., a leader in multi-band satellite communications (SATCOM) terminals for US Department of Defense applications, announced that it was awarded a $222 M production contract by the US Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) for 205 Lightweight Multi-band Satellite Terminals (LMST). Harris has received $66 M since 1995 for the design, development and low rate initial production of 36 LMST systems. As previously announced by the US Army, production orders for the 205 additional systems could increase the total LMST contract value for Harris to $288 M by 2006.

The highly mobile LMST provides deployed military forces with military X- and Ka-band, and commercial C- and Ku-band access for satellite-based, voice, video and data communications connectivity with headquarters operations.

"The LMTS has proven itself in the field over the past four years, and our spiral development processes through the previous contracts have greatly enhanced the terminal's communications capability," says Bob Henry, president, Harris Government Communications Systems Division (GCSD). "Highly reliable, tactical sideband SATCOM terminals have been a core competency of Harris for over 30 years, and state-of-the-art advances in battlespace communications such as LMST will ensure that US forces are able to communicate seamlessly through the Global Information Grid (GIG) well into the 21st century."

Under terms of the production contract, Harris is responsible for program management and production of up to 205 LMSTs including associated documentation and equipment. Work will begin immediately on new orders from the US Marine Corps and US Air Force for 25- and 14-transit case systems, respectively.

Through technology enhancements such as a six-spoke hub with a reach-back spoke, LMST now offer significantly greater capability and flexibility than previous generations of the terminals, as well as six-times the communications capacity. The modular design of the LMST makes it configurable to either a transit case or trailer design in order to support various missions such as humanitarian, disaster relief and regional conflicts.

For further information, contact: Sleighton Meyer, Harris Corp., Government Communications Systems Division (321) 727-6514.

US Air Force Awards Harris Corp. $10 M Electronic Warfare Simulation Follow-on Contracts

Harris Corp., a world leader in Electronic Warfare (EW) simulation systems, was recently awarded $10 M by the US Air Force, Ogden Air Logistics Center, Ogden, Utah, for two Miniature-multiple Threat Emitter Systems (Mini-MUTES) contracts. The contracts bring the total Mini-MUTES-related contracts awards for Harris to $160 M since 1990, with potential options for another $10 M. Mini-MUTES is an EW training system that simulate radar emissions used for testing combat aircraft and aircrew responses to threats that might be encountered during actual air combat.

"US Air Force aircraft and their aircrews have experienced a proliferation of dynamic and complex air defense systems over the last decade," says Bob Henry, president, Harris Government Communications Systems Division (GCSD). "Harris is proud to play an integral part in helping to train our military's aircrews and test their aircraft against such threats well before they are deployed on dangerous missions where lives are at stake."

Harris was awarded $122 M from 1990 to 1996 for delivery of the original 45 Mini-MUTES and their associated equipment and documentation. These latest two contracts, one for the $1.35 M Identification Friend/Foe Array Antenna, and another for the $8.65 M Advanced Threats and Associated Documentation subsystems, are part of the Mini-MUTES Modernization Program (M3P) contract awarded to Harris in 1998. The potential total value of the contract is $50 M.

For further information, contact: Sleighton Meyer, Harris Corp., Government Communications Systems Division (321) 727-6514.

Northrop Grumman Scores Bullseye in Successful AMSTE Test

A Northrop Grumman Corp. team successfully engaged a moving vehicle with a low cost, precision weapon as part of a contract to develop an affordable moving target engagement (AMSTE) capability for the Department of Defense. The test took place at the Eglin AFB test range.

The one-year, $12 M project is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Special Projects Office in conjunction with the US Air Force Laboratory in Rome, NY, and is being conducted by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems.

The purpose of the AMSTE program is to develop a system that locates and tracks a ground target moving at up to 50 mph and destroy it with an affordable precision weapon.

"This technology makes it possible to conduct multiple, near-simultaneous, stand-off precision engagements of even the most mobile target in all weather," said Bill McCall, senior program manager at Integrated Systems. "We have designed an open architecture that will work with multiple intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, multiple attack platforms and multiple weapons and still be compatible with current command and controls systems, using established message sets, procedures and communications links.

"With this capability, we will be able to find and follow those targets that are trying to evade detection and destroy them with little collateral damage, effectively denying the enemy sanctuary of movement," he said.

The test was designed to couple Integrated Systems' Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System precision ground moving target indicator (GMTI) with a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) active electronically-scanned array radar with precision GMTI capability. The JSF candidate radar, developed by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems of Baltimore for the Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman/BAE Systems JSF team, was mounted on a company-owned BAC I-II test-bed aircraft.

Real-time precision tracking and engagement data was gathered by each radar and used to direct a low cost, precision weapon produced by Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control of Orlando, FL. The weapon was launched from an Air Force F-16 and dropped on a moving target on the Eglin range.

For additional information, contact: Jim Stratford, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems (321) 726-7526 or visit the Web site: http://www.northropgrumman.com.