Northrop Grumman Corporation's leading Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) gateway system reached 200,000 combat operational flight hours since its first deployment with the U.S. Air Force in 2008.

"This significant milestone further demonstrates the BACN system's proven ability to enhance situational awareness, improve warfighter safety and deliver open communications capabilities for a wide range of missions," said Roshan Roeder, vice president, communications, airborne sensors and networks division, Northrop Grumman.

"BACN is one of the first battle-tested gateway systems to enable warfighters and platforms to effectively communicate and securely share data across all branches of the Department of Defense."

Northrop Grumman's BACN system is a high-altitude, airborne communications gateway that translates and distributes imagery, voice and tactical data from disparate elements-enhancing situational awareness communications and coordination for joint warfighters operating across space, air, land and sea. BACN has been used for missions such as airdrop, convoy, humanitarian assistance, close air support, and theater air control systems operations.

In response to a joint urgent operational need, Northrop Grumman accelerated development of the company's BACN gateway system onto both manned and unmanned aircraft and delivered the first article of this critical capability to the U.S. Air Force in only nine months.

Northrop Grumman has demonstrated agility through the continuous introduction of incremental performance improvements that have been demonstrated and deployed to the fleet over the 12 years of the BACN program. Improvements to the BACN system include enhancing data rates by 10 times, integrating new automation software to streamline communications and improve situational awareness, and implementing new military standard communications protocols.

The BACN system achieved its 200,000 combat flight hours milestone by flying more than 15,500 missions since the system was first deployed in October 2008. The BACN system currently flies on four EQ-4B Block 20 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft systems and three E-11A modified business jet aircraft to provide persistent connectivity and operational support 24 hours a day, seven days a week in multiple countries. The BACN system has delivered a mission availability rate above 98 percent over the last 12 years.

Northrop Grumman is investing in developing low size, weight and power gateway systems which are designed to enable communications and cross domain translations between multiple beyond line-of-sight and line-of-sight networks and datalinks-inclusive of 5th to 4th, generation capabilities. The development of these systems includes a focus on multi-level secure and integrated functions such as cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, next generation data links and the use of third-party software and sensor solutions.

Related Links
Northrop Grumman's
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Lockheed Martin Flies Real-Time, Mission Enabling Kubernetes Onboard U-2
Palmdale CA (SPX) Dec 15, 2020
Lockheed Martin has conducted a flight test mission featuring distributed processing onboard the U-2 Dragon Lady via Kubernetes containerization technology. The demonstration is a critical steppingstone toward creating a DevSecOps environment to enable the delivery of enhanced software capability to airborne assets in real-time. "The U-2 Kubernetes demonstration from mid-November not only advances the deployment pipeline for in-flight software upgrades but also operationally extends the computatio ... read more