Air Force satellite terminal system from Raytheon gets Milestone C award
NewsFebruary 28, 2012
MARLBOROUGH, Mass. A Raytheon-designed satellite terminal system for U.S. Air Force protected communications ? the Minuteman Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network Program Upgrade (MMPU) -- acquired a Milestone C decision and production award.
The Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) terminal adds nuclear command and control ability to Raytheon’s AEHF terminal product line that includes the Army’s Secure Mobile Anti-Jam Reliable Transportable Terminal (SMART-T) and the Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT).
Raytheon’s first AEHF satellite recently began a set of operational tests where MMPU, NMT, and SMART-T demonstrated interoperable communications using the AEHF satellite's eXtended Data Rate (XDR) waveform, which moves data more than five times faster than previous EHF systems.
Raytheon is projected to deliver as many as 67 MMPU AEHF terminals, with spares, to the U.S. Air Force. The MMPU AEHF systems use Raytheon's XDR waveform software and hardware, including some new cryptographic algorithms for securing national command and control (NC2) networks.
