Raytheon wins US Army radio contract

Raytheon is to build more airborne radios and continue to modernise future radios for the US Army under a $51 million award announced 23 October. The modernisation effort includes Phase 3 of the Mobile User Objective Service/Cryptographic Modernization (MUOS/CM) upgrade programme, which increases satellite capacity for warfighters.

MUOS replaces the aging constellation of Ultra High Frequency Follow-On communications satellites. The Phase 3 software upgrade will allow Raytheon to complete MUOS/CM design tasks and prepare for Phase 4 qualification testing in 2013. Full-rate production is planned for 2015, making this the first MUOS airborne radio available.

According to Raytheon, the MUOS/CM upgrade will be a new product, and will be called the RT-1987. It will be able to accept new waveforms ported from the Department of Defense's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) information repository.

David Patton, ARC-231 senior program manager in Raytheon's Network Centric Systems business, said: ‘The ARC-231 radio system has proven to be a very capable, high performing, multi-function radio set that adapts to changing application requirements with only software upgrades. Because the equipment upgrades are backward compatible with existing equipment installations, minimal platform changes are required. This approach simplifies aircraft integration tasks and reduces upgrade costs.

Raytheon said it has sold more than 6,000 ARC-231 radios for use on rotary and fixed-wing, manned and unmanned aircraft, and for use on special ground mobile and seaborne applications. It provides the common Line of Sight communications and Demand Assignment Multiple Access Integrated Waveform (DAMA IW) used for satellite communications.