Another industry partner has joined the Raytheon Co.-led team for the US Army's Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) program. Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Space & ISR Systems Division facility in Boulder, CO, joins the other partners of Team IBCS including Raytheon, General Dynamics, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Davidson Technologies, IBM and Carlson Technologies, as well as academia partners. The new team member brings expertise in evaluating warfighter benefits of space-based data to the IBCS architecture. The Northrop Grumman Space & ISR Systems Division performs work at Buckley and Schriever Air Force Bases elsewhere in Colorado.
IBCS is a US Army and joint development program with a modular, open architecture, system-of-systems construct allowing air and missile defense warfighters to use any sensor and any shooter within an integrated fire control network. Raytheon won the first stage of a competitive, multi-phase Army award for IBCS in late September 2008.
Team IBCS was formed using OpenAIRTM, Raytheon's open business model that uses the best of large and small businesses and academia to provide the best value solution. "The addition of Northrop Grumman Space & ISR Systems to the team reinforces our commitment to providing warfighters with advanced capabilities early as well as exemplifying the tenets of our open air objective and best-of-breed approach," said Dan Kirby, the win leader for Team IBCS.
"Raytheon's Team IBCS is a specifically tailored team devoted to partnering with our Army customer to provide our warfighters the next 'unfair advantage' on current and future battlefields against all aerial threats," added John Urias, Vice President of the Raytheon Battlespace Integration Directorate.
Air and Missile Defense systems included in the IBCS program architecture are weapon and sensor systems already developed and produced by Raytheon, including the Patriot air and missile defense system; JLENS (Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System); SLAMRAAM (Surface-Launched Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Missile); the Sentinel Radar; and the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense) radar.
A preliminary design review for the Integrated Battle Command System was scheduled for May 2009, and a single award for phase two of the program is expected in late August 2009. Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Global Capabilities Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the United States Missile Defense Agency, the United States Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.