Raytheon, the only provider of fielded Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite terminals that protect the military's most sensitive information, was chosen by the U.S. Air Force under a $134,399,631 contract to develop a terminal that transmits emergency messages to aircrews during nuclear and non-nuclear missions.

The Global Aircrew Strategic Network Terminal (Global ASNT) is part of the nuclear command and control system that allows the President of the United States to direct and manage U.S. forces. The terminals will be installed at fixed sites, including wing command posts, nuclear task forces and munitions support squadrons, and forward deployed mobile support teams. Fielding is expected to begin in fiscal 2017.

"Our satellite terminals offer strong connectivity and reliability in the harshest of environments," said Scott Whatmough, vice president of Integrated Communication Systems in Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems business. "Thirty years after we built our first terminal, we're still the only company that provides protected satellite communication terminals at the highest levels."

Raytheon is actively producing AEHF terminals for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. The terminals have demonstrated interoperable communications using the AEHF satellite's Extended Data Rate (XDR) waveform, one of the military's most complex, low probability of detection, low probability of interception, anti-jam waveforms. XDR moves data more than five times faster than legacy satellite systems.

Raytheon's terminals currently support military operations on older Milstar satellites, and are deployed and ready to operate with the newest AEHF satellites as soon as they are declared operational.