MCKINNEY, Texas, Nov. 7, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company's (NYSE:
RTN) Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT) is the first advanced, next-generation
satellite communications (SATCOM) system to successfully log on to and
communicate with the U.S. government's Milstar SATCOM system using low and
medium data rate waveforms.
The system will provide naval commanders and sailors with greater data
capacity, as well as improved protection against enemy intercept and
jamming. Raytheon has also demonstrated that its NMT is fully compatible
with existing submarine and shore antennas, an important life-cycle
cost-savings objective of the NMT program.
This achievement follows Raytheon's earlier success in developing the
first Software Communications Architecture (SCA)-compliant SATCOM system to
validate the advanced extended data rate communications waveform. This
waveform provides highly protected and high-speed communications with the
Department of Defense's (DoD) new Advanced Extremely High Frequency
satellite constellation planned for operation in 2010. Raytheon's
non-proprietary, SCA implementation of these waveforms meets the DoD's
vision to make them available for future developments, significantly
reducing costs.
"Raytheon's design engineers logged more than 13,000 hours onboard
ships and submarines collecting data to understand what matters most to the
Navy," said Jerry Powlen, vice president of Network Centric Systems'
Integrated Communications Systems. "These achievements demonstrate
Raytheon's ability to continue to provide the Navy with the most reliable,
affordable and user friendly advanced SATCOM capability."
With more than 500 Navy SATCOM systems currently fielded, Raytheon's
NMT solution builds on the company's extensive experience and innovative
solutions in naval communications. NMT, which replaces several existing
SATCOM systems developed and maintained by Raytheon during the last 20
years, is expected to be installed in more than 300 ships, submarines and
shore stations.
The Navy's communications program office, which reports to the Navy's
program executive office for command, control, communications, computers
and intelligence, is responsible for developing and delivering NMT
capabilities to the fleet.
"Our NMT SATCOM design features over 95 percent commonality of parts,"
said Powlen. "For our customer, that means it can share a significant
percentage of parts between ships, subs and shore stations, without
additional investment and logistics cost. In fact, our total life-cycle
design even reduces the number of personnel needed to operate and maintain
the system, while minimizing the training needed to support it. We consider
these critical features for the future."
Raytheon Company, with 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, is an industry
leader in defense and government electronics, space, information
technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft.
With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people
worldwide.
Note to Editors:
NMT is a three-year contract to design and develop prototype submarine
and shipboard terminals for the transformational SATCOM component of the
U.S. Navy's FORCEnet concept. NMT provides the bandwidth efficiency that
allows naval information networks to extend seamlessly from individual
ships and submarines to other networks around the globe. NMT replaces three
separate systems currently deployed in the U.S. Navy, extending the
submarine and shipboard capability from Extremely High Frequency (EHF)
waveforms to Advanced EHF (AEHF) and providing Global Broadcast System,
X-band and Ka-band services. Low Data Rate (LDR), Medium Data Rate (MDR)
are families of military-use satellite communications protocol waveforms
used with the Milstar and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)
satellites operated by the Department of Defense.
Contact:
MB Hodgkiss
508.490.2607
SOURCE Raytheon Company
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Related links:
http://www.raytheon.com
CONTACT:
MB Hodgkiss of Raytheon Company,
+1-508-490-2607
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