ESC awards contract to ensure warfighters can receive needed info

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  The Electronic Systems Center recently awarded a contract to General Dynamics to ensure warfighters will be able to continue receiving the data files, imagery and full motion video they are accustomed to.

"The Global Broadcast Service is a combination of direct TV and direct PC for the warfighter," said Mike Hartung, GBS receive suites program manager. "This contract gives the users the ability to buy more GBS ground receive suites and also retrofit the ones we have."

The ground receive suite is a transportable ground station that receives one-way satellite transmission of classified and unclassified video and data products in support of all services and joint forces.

In addition to allowing for the qualification and production of the new suites, the contract ensures a transmission security solution is implemented through the use of a developed joint internet protocol modem.

Through the retrofit kits, it also will bring the legacy systems up to the same performance level as the new items.

The contract, which was awarded Aug. 22, is a five-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract. If all the units are ordered, the potential value of the contract could reach $900 million.

Other potential program product improvements are also being looked at, such as a two-way receive suite and wireless-to-the-edge broadcast.

According to Mr. Hartung, GBS provides the user on the ground multiple benefits, but two key ones are that it's a high-bandwidth broadcast leveraging commercial satellite technology and also that it's not done point-to-point.

"The fact that it's high-bandwidth means that we are not tying up tactical networks, overburdening them with throughput," he said. "And another reason it is so popular is that one broadcast can cover multiple users."

In the past, GBS has supported Joint Task Force Katrina, Operation Unified Response in Haiti and Operation Tomodachi in Japan.

It also has been used in theater to provide remotely piloted vehicle imagery over satellite to warfighters on the ground.

"Our biggest audience has been users in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Mr. Hartung. "GBS has played a key role in Task Force Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize (ODIN), assisting them in their search for roadside bombs and the people who plant them."

From here, the program office will work with General Dynamics on the proposed solution, ensuring all the supportability facets, such as provisioning, technical manuals and training, will be available when the services go to purchase the hardware. Also, qualification testing will be performed to ensure the solution meets the operational requirements, especially in regard to environmental considerations.

"The work to get here took longer than anticipated, but we persevered," said Mr. Hartung. "We had a diverse source selection comprised of all services and it was truly a joint effort. It was also a great example of collaboration between ESC and the Space and Missile Center in Los Angeles, California, which played a key role in the source selection."

An aspect he thought worked well was having the offerors come to Point Loma, Calif., to demonstrate their proposed designs.

"This allowed them to substantiate the requirements they said they would meet in their proposals, and it was a risk reducer for us."

Overall, Mr. Hartung is pleased that the support the warfighter requires is continuing.

"This contract ensures the warfighter will still have the capability to receive the data he needs, whether it is full motion video, imagery, data files or weather, wherever he needs it on the battlefield," he said.