MUOS is the Department of Defense's (DoD) next-generation, advanced narrow band communications satellite constellation that will serve the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
SPAWAR was originally scheduled to award a multi-billion dollar MUOS Risk Reduction, Design Development, Acquisition and Operations Support (RRDD AOS) contract in June, 2004. When recent DoD budget cuts forced program delays, SPAWAR asked Raytheon and another team to revise their earlier proposals and resubmit them by Aug. 2, 2004.
"Our proposal retains and enhances benefits that were in our previous offering," said Frank Van Rensselaer, Raytheon MUOS program manager.
"With the launch of the first MUOS satellite, more than 45,000 legacy military radios and their users will get a 10-fold increase in communication capability. We can do this without changing legacy radios, which could avoid the government's need to spend nearly $12 billion on platform modification."
Gene Blackwell, Raytheon vice president of Transformational Communication Systems, said, "MUOS gives our troops 'comms on the move.' This is especially important to warfighters in urban areas, dense jungle or other environments where communicating is very difficult, today."
Raytheon's MUOS team members are: Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla.; Northrop Grumman Astro Aerospace, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Science Applications International Corporation, Reston, Va.; ViaSat, Carlsbad, Calif., and Space Systems/Loral, Palo Alto, Calif.