Contract Award: Northrop Grumman to support U.S. Air Force in enhancing satellite multi-sensor integration capabilities

News Report

As reported by defpro.news and other news sources, Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $5.75 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to provide research and development for the Modular Architecture for Signal-processing, Tracking and Exploitation Research program (MASTER). The contract was awarded by the Space and Missile System Center's Development Planning Directorate, located at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

MASTER supports the government ground processing effort for the U.S. Air Force's Commercially Hosted IR Payload (CHIRP) program's on-orbit period. An experimental CHIRP sensor is hosted on a commercial SES satellite operating in geosynchronous orbit over the United States. The SES satellite was successfully launched on Sept. 21 from French Guiana.

The Program

The term hosted payloads refers to the utilization of available capacity on commercial satellites to accommodate additional transponders, instruments, or other spacebound items. By offering "piggyback rides" or "hitchhiking" opportunities on commercial spacecraft already scheduled for launch, satellite firms allow entities such as government agencies to send sensors and other equipment into space on a timely and cost-effective basis. The hosted payloads concept is similar to the ridesharing or multiple manifesting concept, but instead of sharing a space launch vehicle, the partners share a satellite bus. In some cases, hosted payloads may also be referred to as secondary payloads.

Hosted payloads can allow the government to plan and implement space missions on shorter cycles compared to the time it takes to procure an entire satellite -- typically 24 months versus 7 to 15 years. This is especially important for agencies facing impending gaps in operational capability. The commercial partnership gives the government an opportunity to leverage an already planned or existing satellite bus, launch vehicle, and satellite operations.

SES-2 satellite, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., carries the first commercially hosted payload for the U.S. Air Force. The satellite was placed into geostationary transfer orbit on September 2011. In addition to its broadcast payload for North American customers, SES-2 carries the U.S. Air Force Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP), a staring, wide-field-of-view telescope designed to test infrared sensor technologies.

The CHIRP sensor was developed by scientists on the Third Generation Infrared System (3GIRS) Risk Reduction team for U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and Air Force Research Laboratory. The sensor uses a telescope to persistently view a quarter of the Earth from geosynchronous orbit, which matches the Earth's rotation so it appears in the same place in the sky. Its large format focal plane array accommodates a wide-field-of-view infrared staring system to sense bright spots on the surface of the Earth that aid in the early warning of missile launches and to support other military missions.  The sensor is remotely commanded and monitored by staff located at the SAIC-developed CHIRP Mission Analysis Center (CMAC) in Seal Beach, Calif. The CHIRP sensor data is securely transmitted to a U.S. government facility, as well as CMAC, for mission data processing and evaluation of the sensor.

The CHIRP sensor features a fixed telescope that can view one quarter of the Earth from geosynchronous orbit. The infrared sensor, based on a 2,000 by 2,000 pixel staring array, will test the potential of its wide field-of-view capabilities for future overhead persistent infrared missions for the U.S. Air Force.

U.S. Air Force's MASTER program has assisted the ground processing effort of the government for the CHIRP campaign. MASTER has been successful in integrating and using algorithms provided by outside third parties as well as processing data from multiple sensors and new experimental simulated data. The MASTER architecture has also enabled innovative parallel data processing with multiple plug-and-play algorithms, along with significant advances in star and static-source line-of-site correction methods.

The Context

In recent times, the hosted payloads concept has gained significant traction within both government and industry. Government agencies, facing new budgetary realities, have issued solicitations and held industry days to investigate the cost and feasibility of commercial solutions, including hosted payloads, as a means of fulfilling their mission requirements.

The U.S. Air Force's Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP) Flight Demonstration Program launched a wide field-of-view, passive infrared sensor on a commercial GEO (SES-2) on September 9, 2011. The experiment supports next-generation infrared sensor system development and is essential to reducing technology risk for the Third Generation Infrared Surveillance (3GIRS) system.

The U.S. Air Force expects to achieve major cost savings by flying this mission as a hosted payload. It has been estimated that if CHIRP were to fly as a dedicated free flyer the cost would be around $500 million. The hosted payload ended up costing $65 million and should satisfy 80% of the technical questions. CHIRP is SES' first hosted payload, SES-2 is also an important demonstration of how hosting government special purpose payloads on commercial satellites can provide cost effective means for experimenting with new technologies.

An innovative three-way industry partnership was responsible for  developing, integrating and testing the CHIRP sensor for the U.S. Air Force. SES acted as the prime contractor for the hosted payload project; SAIC developed and built the CHIRP sensor; and Orbital was responsible for the overall system design, integration and testing processes, as well as the designer and integrator  of the hosted payload interface that will be employed for future hosted payloads aboard Orbital’s commercial satellites.

The MASTER contract awarded to Northrop Grumman is a follow-on effort to the Alternative Infrared Satellite System program, begun in 2006 and then renamed Third Generation Infrared Surveillance. MASTER has been focused on developing an open, plug-and-play, sensor-agnostic processing architecture for the government to use in evaluating whole earth-staring array sensors.

Comments

"MASTER provides an important sensor-agnostic ground processing capability for our customer," said Ron Alford, Northrop Grumman's director, sensor exploitation systems and Colorado campuses. "The architecture utilizes an enterprise approach with an open architecture and plug-and-play components. In future data processing systems, measurable cost savings can be enjoyed by using the MASTER architecture to provide common processing capabilities across sensor types and system constellations without the need for customized processing chains."

"This approach not only reduces costs, but facilitates new missions, new sensor/data providers and the participation of third parties in specialized processing algorithms for new and changing missions," Alford said.

States Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES, said: “SES-2 will provide seamless replacement capacity at the important orbital position of 87 degrees West, ensuring a number of our North American customers a smooth continuation of their operations for years to come. Fitted with CHIRP, SES’ first hosted payload, SES-2 is also an important demonstration of how hosting government special purpose payloads on commercial satellites can provide cost effective means for experimenting with new technologies”

References: defpro.news (1), Space Commerce (2), HostedPayload.com (3), SAIC (4), SpaceNews (5), Aerospace and Defence News (6)

Contract Award: Alion S&T to support US Army's LandWarNet

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Alion Science and Technology, an employee-owned technology solutions company, has won three task orders totaling $8.6 million to continue support to the US Army Headquarters Deputy Chief of Staff G-3/5/7 and G-8 in assessing, validating and prioritizing current and future warfighting capabilities, as well as the Army’s Battle Command Simulation and Experimentation office. Alion’s work will bolster the US Army’s efforts to expand and enhance LandWarNet, which connects literally every Army information system and electronic process, to deliver essential mission command capabilities that provide optimal return on investment.

Alion will provide subject matter experts to assist the US Army with prioritizing, integrating and mitigating LandWarNet and mission command capabilities. This will better enable US Army to make short-, mid-range and long-term decisions that impact funding, development and warfighter capabilities. Alion will also help in delivering a fully trained Army modeling and simulation (M&S) community that best meets US Army’s warfighting needs by supplying trained M&S professionals.

The Context (LandWarNet and the GIG)

LandWarNet started as a media campaign to identify the US Army's overall network strategy for the future force. The US Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Futures Center created LandWarNet as a concept and strategy so that it would be recognized in the Joint services community.

LandWarNet started off as TRADOC's operational and tactical network requirements for the future warfighter. Bringing together all those capabilities under one name, LandWarNet, helps funnel those into one view. LandWarNet integrates all the disparate efforts into one network. One giant system, with all these many pieces, come together in LandWarNet.

LandWarNet links information capabilities that enable warfighters to perform their missions. Through the validation, prioritization, analysis, simulation and integration of combat capabilities, resources are used to US Army’s best advantage, to save time and money and provide warfighters with ever-improving capabilities.

The idea behind LandWarNet is how to best support the warfighter, the Soldier. It will give Soldiers the ability to reach up and grab that information they need. LandWarNet brings together the Active and Reserve Components and connects them into the Global Information Grid (GIG), i.e. the globally interconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel necessary to collect, process, store, disseminate, and manage information on demand for users. The GIG includes all owned and leased communications and computing systems and services, software (including applications), data, security services, and other associated services necessary to achieve information superiority.

LandWarNet is the infrastructure and services that comprise the US Army’s portion of the GIG. For strategic oversight, the development of LandWarNet has been divided into two strategic initiatives:

• developing the LandWarNet institutional infrastructure, which encompasses the network, applications, and information technology (IT) processes that support Army institutions (the generating force)
• developing LandWarNet operational capabilities, which includes network capabilities, applications, and processes that directly support the operating force.

References: Alion Science & Technology (1), GlobalSecurity.org (2), US Army (3)

Forza NEC moves on

News Report

As reported on the Italian Army's website, Italian Land Forces have recently completed a set of trials and exercitations aimed at evaluating the achieved level of interoperability among the newly developed units of the Forza NEC digitalized Brigade.

The first part of these tests occurred between October 3rd and 7th during the "Joint Trials 2011" that took place in Brindisi and Lecce. SELEX Sistemi Integrati, the Finmeccanica Company acting as Prime Contractor and Lead System Integrator for the program, has supported the Italian Army's Mechanized Brigade "Pinerolo" in conducting a Command Post Exercise (CPT) that required network-enabled integration with Regimental Infantry Units and Joint Fire Support Teams.

During the exercise, all the key C4I components of the Forza NEC architecture were interconnected at both the operational and tactical level and allowed the creation of a Joint Common Situation Awareness to be exploited by ground, naval and air forces.

The second part of the tests was performed on October 7th during the 31st anniversary of the Italian Army's CEPOLISPE (polyfunctional centre for the experimentation), and was focused on the demonstration of the soldier-vehicle interoperability.

The System

Forza NEC (Network Enabled Capability) is a Large System for military operations that provides the wide range of capabilities that is required by a modern land brigade operating in joint or multinational coalitions, including: Command and Control, Maneuver / Close Combat, ISTAR, Land Fire Support (Artillery), Air Defence, Force Protection (including CBRN), Mobility and Counter-mobility, Logistic Support, Helicopter Support, Joint and Coalition Interoperability, and Civil-Military-Cooperation (CIMIC).

Forza NEC units and related operational, logistic components are designed and structured in complete
compliance with a network-enabled architecture. Architectural design plays thus a key role for the development of such a system, since it ensures that the technical requirements of the individual components achieve an Integrated Force, in compliance with the operational requirements related to the specific efficiency level.

FORZA NEC system architecture is based on the following main components:

• C4I modules, covering all the hierarchy levels spanning from Brigade commanders to single soldiers, and all the functional areas associated with requested operational capabilities.
• Communication equipments for data and voice transmission (HF/VHF/UHF wireless radios, mobile satellite communications, advanced networking devices)
• HW stations and infrastructures (shelters) for deployable command posts.
• C4I stations (BMS, Battlefield Management Systems) for mobile command posts (to be mounted on a wide family of vehicles)
• C4I components for dismounted soldiers, fully integrated with the global architecture.
• Tactical gateways and Service Oriented Architectures for achieving interoperability among network-enabled units, legacy equipments, and external C4I systems.
• Certified components for allowing secure and protected data transfer between different security levels
• Unmanned Systems (maneuver range UAVs, UGVs)
• Helicopters (combat and cactical)
• Sensors (surveillance radars, EO/IR devices, acoustic sensors)
• Battlefield Target Identification Devices
• Electronic Warfare devices
• Force protection devices (including CBRN defence assets) 

Most of the above components are integrated within mobile combat and tactical vehicles, including Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), Armoured Infantry Figthing Vehicles (AIFV), Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV), Light Multirole Vehicles (LMV), Medium Multirole Vehicles (MMV).

Currently, the reference platforms considered within Forza NEC are the IVECO 8x8 IFV "Freccia" and the IVECO Ligth Multirole Tactical Vehicle "Lince".

The Context

Finmeccanica subsidiary SELEX Sistemi Integrati announced on June 2010 that was awared a 238 M€ contract from the Italian Ministry of Defence’s Land Armaments General Directorate, for implementing the Forza NEC digitized system.

SELEX Sistemi Integrati is the main supplier and system integrator, but they will work with a very broad alliance of Italian firms. Other Finmeccanica companies such as SELEX Elsag, SELEX Galileo, Oto Melara, AgustaWestland, and MBDA are included. So are independent firms like Elettronica, Iveco, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, the Iveco-Oto Melara consortium, and the Soldato Futuro consortium.

Italy’s system is hardly unusual, joining recent efforts in Australia (LAND 75/ 125), Canada (LCSS), Germany (FuInfoSys Heer), and Israel (Tsayad). America has its Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below system, which is being expanded and improved.

References: Italian Army (1,2), SELEX Sistemi Integrati (3), Defense Industry Daily (4)

Contract Award: SAIC to provide information systems engineering and information technology services to US Army

References: SAIC

News Report

As appeared on a recent news report, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) was awarded a prime contract by the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC) to provide information systems engineering and information technology (IT) services in support of the United States Army Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC) and federal agency communication systems worldwide.

The Context

ISEC carries out important roles in the US Army's information mission area, with major functions including engineering, installing, quality assurance and testing for the diverse communications and automation systems throughout the Army. Under the contract, SAIC will provide information systems engineering and IT services as required, including full life cycle planning, design, development, engineering, implementation, procurement, logistics, evaluation, test, sustainment, and ancillary services for all ISEC projects.

The multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a five year period of performance with a total contract ceiling value of $892 million.

Comments

"We look forward to providing innovative and flexible technologies to support ISEC's engineering and technical requirements around the world," said Peter Dube, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager.