On August 2, 2004 the U.S. Army awarded the Lockheed Martin team an $879 million defense contract to develop the ACS. ACS will replace current ISR aircraft, including the U.S. Army's Guardrail Common Sensor, the Airborne Reconnaissance Low aircraft and the U.S. Navy's fleet of EP-3 aircraft.
Under the System Development and Demonstration contract awarded today, the Lockheed Martin team will combine and enhance the capabilities of the current systems on these platforms into a single ISR mission package on a standard airborne platform.
The contract has a potential value of more than $7 billion over the life of the expected 20-year program.
L-3 IS will perform aircraft integration, aircraft interior modifications, avionics modification, and implementation of a self-protection system, as well as mission system integration and tests.
L-3 CS-West will provide the wideband data link and support communication systems integration and their advanced 3rd generation wideband communication system which is an IPv6, SCA compliant product - providing both Line Of Sight and SATCOM connectivity with data rates up to 274 Mbps.
"We're excited about this opportunity to play a significant role in this Defense Department transformation program and to strengthen our relations with the U. S. Army and our partners Lockheed Martin and Embraer," said Bob Drewes, president of L-3 IS.
Specifically, under the SDD phase of the contract, the team will deliver five certified, mission ready airborne ISR systems, with initial testing planned for 2006 and the first equipped unit in 2009.
The balance of the effort would be performed under follow-on Low Rate Initial Production and full rate production contracts anticipated in 2007 and 2009, respectively. The program is expected to include as many as 57 U.S. Army and U.S. Navy aircraft.
Lockheed Martin'sACS design features an unprecedented sensor-computer integration that will pinpoint threats in real-time. ACS will provide instantaneous access to decision-quality intelligence from manned, unmanned and space-based ISR systems.
It will provide U.S. Army and U.S. Navy commanders with persistent surveillance, allowing them to 'see' a complete representation of the battlespace.
The team's ACS solution incorporates a software-centric, open architecture to ensure easy technology insertion, growth and compatibility with future systems, including the U.S. Army's Future Combat System and the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS).
ACS will bring real-time multi-intelligence sensor and fusion capability to DCGS and will use the new DCGS architecture framework to enable extended joint operations with ISR systems such as JSTARS, U-2, and EP-3.
The ACS sensor suite will fly onboard an Embraer ERJ-145 aircraft. In addition to Embraer, Lockheed Martin's team includes Argon Engineering, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Harris and Raytheon.