NATO space enterprise must throttle up — or risk falling short

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  29 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 28, 2021

  AIR FORCE Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Georgia, has been awarded a $612,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for C20/C37 engineering services support. The contractor will provide the engineering and data support on a recurring basis for all Gulfstream executive aircraft for the duration of the contract. Work will be performed for the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard in Savannah, Georgia; Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy; Ramstein Air Base, Germany; Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii; Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Hawaii; and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, D.C. The work is expected to be completed Jan. 31, 2031. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $10,872,957 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (FA8134-21-D-0001). Filius Corp., Centreville, Virginia, has been awarded a $70,617,597 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for AN/TYQ-23A Tactical Air Operations Modules contractor logistics support. The contractor will provide all labor, tools, equipment, technical data/manuals, materials, supplies, parts, original equipment manufacturer service bulletins and the service necessary to provide contractor logistics support. Work will be performed in Centreville, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by January 2026. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $400,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8217-21-D-0001). L3Harris Technologies Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been awarded a $9,513,345, cost-reimbursable modification (P00021) to contract FA8823-20-C-0004 for exercising Option Period Two for Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities system sustainment services. Work will be performed in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Dahlgren, Virginia, and is expected to be completed Jan. 31, 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds in the full amount are being obligated at the time of award. Total cumulative face value of the contract is $328,221,755. Space and Missile Systems Center, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the contracting activity. U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND Berry Aviation Inc., San Marcos, Texas, has been awarded a contract modification (P00011) on contract HTC711-17-D-R008 in the amount of $179,451,602. This modification provides continued rotary and fixed-wing airlift support services, including passenger, cargo, casualty evacuation, personnel recovery, air drop and limited door-to-door services to U.S. Africa Command. Work will be performed in continental Africa, African islands and countries supporting operations in Africa, such as Germany and Italy. The option period of performance is from Feb. 2, 2021, to Feb. 1, 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds will be obligated at task order award. This modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $854,008,319, from $674,556,717. U.S. Transportation Command, Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Abel Unlimited Inc.,* West Palm Beach, Florida (SPE1C1-21-D-1422, $160,548,560); Hilo Enterprises LLC,* McLean, Virginia (SPE1C1-21-D-1424, $149,109,475); Odell International LLC,* Mooresville, North Carolina (SPE1C1-21-D-1425, $90,509,251); At Ease Sustainment LLC,* Pataskala, Ohio (SPE1C1-21-D-1421, $50,171,425); and Seaich Card & Souvenir Corp.,* Salt Lake City, Utah (SPE1C1-21-D-1426, $35,251,200), have each been awarded a fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract under solicitation SPE1C1-20-R-0137 for disposable surgical gowns. These were competitive acquisitions with 73 offers received. They are one-year contracts with no option periods. Locations of performance are Texas, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Utah, with a Jan. 27, 2022, ordering period end date. Using customers are the Department of Health and Human Services and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. NAVY ACE Maintenance & Services Inc.,* Austin, Texas, is awarded a maximum value $90,175,044 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for janitorial services at Naval Support Activity Bethesda, Maryland. The work to be performed provides for all labor, management supervision, tools, materials and equipment required to perform base janitorial services. Future task orders will be primarily funded by operation and maintenance (Navy); operation and maintenance (Army); Navy working capital funds; and Defense Health Program funds. Work will be performed in Bethesda, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by March 2026. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy); fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army); Navy working capital funds; and fiscal 2021 Defense Health Program funds in the amount of $17,855,592 will be obligated under the initial task order at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Work under the initial task order is expected to be completed by February 2022. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website with three proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N40080-21-D-0004). BAE Systems Land & Armaments L.P., Sterling Heights, Michigan, is awarded a $77,475,197 five-year, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for interim contractor support for Amphibious Combat Vehicle replacement parts, support and test equipment and the repair of repairables/repairable parts. Work will be performed in York, Pennsylvania (70%); Aiken, South Carolina (20%); Sterling Heights, Michigan (5%); and Stafford, Virginia (5%), and is expected to be completed in January 2026. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual delivery orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1(a)(ii). The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M67854-21-D-0001). Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Marietta, Georgia, is awarded a $33,229,494 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides for the procurement of up to a maximum quantity of 38 large aircraft infrared countermeasures (LAIRCM) A-kits, up to 38 supplemental kits, five bench stock kits and LAIRCM-advanced threat warning a-kit replacement parts in support of the C/KC-130J aircraft. Work will be performed in Marietta, Georgia, and is expected to be completed in December 2025. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual task orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-21-D-0011). DynCorp International LLC, Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $32,521,640 firm-fixed-price, cost reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract procures organizational, selected intermediate, limited depot level maintenance and logistics support services for F/A-18C/D/E/F, EA-18G, MH-60S, F-16A/B, and E-2C/D aircraft for the Navy. Work will be performed in Fallon, Nevada, and is expected to be completed in September 2021. No funds will be obligated at the time of award and obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-21-D-0014). Barkley Andross Corp.,* Hesperia, California, is awarded a maximum value $20,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity job order contract for electrical and other wiring installation projects at various installations located within the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Southwest area of responsibility. Work will be performed in the Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, California; and Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach, California, areas and is expected to be completed by January 2026. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,000 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the beta.SAM.gov website with eight proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-21-D-2603). GSE Dynamics Inc.,* Hauppauge, New York, is awarded an $18,889,829 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, not-to-exceed contract with firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee task order provisions to manufacture, test and deliver composite structures. Work will be performed in Hauppauge, New York, and is expected to be completed by January 2026. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $640,000 will be obligated at time of award via an individual task order and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website with one offer received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (N64498-21-D-4012). Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded a $10,587,984 cost-plus-fixed-fee order (N00019-21-F-0159) against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0029. This order provides for the development of Phase One structural repair manuals for the CH-53K aircraft. The repair manuals address organizational level repairs pertaining to airframe skins, doors and covers, tail cone, main and tail blade erosion repair, as well as non-destructive inspection procedures and standards. Work will be performed in Shelton, Connecticut (43%); Stratford, Connecticut (41%); and Bohemia, New York (16%), and is expected to be completed in April 2023. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,930,357 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Alutiiq Solutions LLC,* Anchorage, Alaska, is awarded a $7,677,543 modification (P00003) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00421-20-D-0007. This modification exercises an option to provide research and analysis, strategic initiative, executive leadership management, administrative, operational and technical program support for the Command Strategic Leadership Service Team in support of the commander, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and direct reporting teams, the NAVAIR Corporate Operations Group, the Business Financial Management Competency, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) front office, and the NAVAIR Washington Liaison Office. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland (60%); and Arlington, Virginia (40%), and is expected to be completed in February 2025. No funds will be obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. ARMY Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp., Overland Park, Kansas (W912GB-21-D-0014); Coplan-Merrick JV LLP, Greenwood Village, Colorado (W912GB-21-D-0015); and WSP USA Solutions Inc., Washington, D.C. (W912GB-21-D-0016), will compete for each order of the $49,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for General Architect-Engineer Services in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 27, 2026. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wiesbaden, Germany, is the contracting activity. The Boeing Co., Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $25,343,186 modification (P00069) to contract W58RGZ-16-C-0023 for to improve the quality of the Apache Attack Helicopter (AH)-64E and lessen the associated post production maintenance burden. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2024. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $25,343,186 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Buffalo Group LLC., Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $14,093,489 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Department of the Army Intelligence Information Services intelligence operations support services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 24, 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $14,093,489 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W50NH9-21-C-0002). InSynergy Engineering, Inc.,* Honolulu, Hawaii (W9128A-21-D-0010); MK Engineers Ltd.,* Mililani, Hawaii (W9128A-21-D-0011); and Nakamura Oyama and Associates, Inc.,* Honolulu, Hawaii (W9128A-21-D-0012), will compete for each order of the $9,900,000 firm-fixed-price contract for an architect-engineer electrical services in the Honolulu, Hawaii area. Bids were solicited via the internet with seven received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 27, 2026. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Honolulu, Hawaii, is the contracting activity. Manson Construction Co., Seattle, Washington, was awarded a $9,847,000 firm-fixed-price contract for maintenance dredging in the Port of Alaska. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in Anchorage, Alaska, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 26, 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $9,847,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, is the contracting activity (W911KB-21-C-0006). *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2486177/

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  5 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR

  THE DOD’S APP STORE DOES THIS ONE CRUCIAL THING TO STAY SECURE

  Lily Hay Newman EVERY DAY, COMPANIES like Google and Apple wage a constant battle to keep malicious apps out of their marketplaces and off people's phones. And while they do catch a lot of malware before it does any damage, there are always a few nasty infiltrators that manage to sneak by and end up getting downloaded by thousands of consumers. No one wants these mistakes to happen, but when you're a crucial app store for the Department of Defense, these mistakes can't happen. That was the problem facing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as it set about creating a flexible yet ultrasecure app store in 2012. NGA is a combat support organization that primarily assesses and distributes geospatial intelligence. The agency wanted to provide sensitive and mission-critical apps to groups across the DOD through a platform that had the security and resilience of a government defense product, while also offering a streamlined, up-to-date user experience similar to ubiquitous commercial app stores. "We recognized that we did not know everything when it came to apps, and we wanted to be using the innovation that was happening in the commercial sector," says Joedy Saffel, division chief and source director of NGA who has worked on the GEOINT App Store from the beginning. "But how do we do that in a safe, secure manner? How do we do that from a contractual perspective? And how do we do that in a way that nontraditional vendors will trust doing business with the government? It was a great challenge." The key, Saffel says, is getting developers to agree to hand over the source code of their apps for in-depth analysis and review. Whether an app is a simple time/speed/distance calculator for a pilot or a hyper-specialized classified tool, sharing source code is a big risk for developers, because it means trusting third parties with the core intellectual property they have built their businesses on. But NGA soon realized that full access was the only way its project could work. So NGA's GEOINT App Store runs its security protections and screening processes in a way a commercial platform never could. Need To Know You can browse through the GEOINT App Store yourself today and see many of the mapping, aeronautical, weather-forecasting, location-sharing, and travel-alert services that it hosts for Android, iOS, desktop, and web. But that's just the public unclassified section—one crucial aspect of designing the platform was building segmentation controls so DOD employees with different levels of clearance, or simply different needs, could have gated access to different apps. "We built the App Store to be a completely unclassified environment that's open to the public," says Ben Foster, a technical director at NGA who is the product manager for the app store. "But it also has identity management that uses a federated approach to authentication. It's even flexible enough to integrate with other identity-management platforms across DOD. If a user is a helicopter pilot, they might see and get different apps then someone who is a tactical operator in the Army." This system also works with the platform's pricing variations: Some apps are free to everyone, some downloads come with a fee that needs to be taken out of a particular department's budget, and some apps are licensed by NGA or another agency. The most radical part of the GEOINT App Store from a government perspective is the speed with which NGA can process apps and get them live in the store. In general, government acquisition processes take many months or years, a clear problem when it comes to constantly evolving software. So NGA worked with its chief information officer, IT Directorate, legal team, international affairs division, and contracting office to establish a streamlined app-vetting process that would be acceptable under federal acquisition regulations. The agency also contracted with a private firm called Engility to directly manage the outreach, acquisition, and development environment for customizing prospective apps to NGA's requirements. The process, known as the Innovative GEOINT Application Provider Program, or IGAPP, minimizes bureaucratic hurdles and guides developers who want to submit an app through a pipeline that vets, modifies, and generally grooms apps for NGA's store. "What we focused on early on was providing tools so developers can bring their app and do a lot of the pre-testing and development with Engility," NGA's Saffel says. "We're able to be flexible with that because it's being done outside of the government footprint in a brokered environment. And then NGA has a governance board that meets every week, and the whole process has matured enough that by the time an app comes to NGA, we can review it and get that application into the app store and exposed within two weeks' time." Though the process might be even faster if NGA only did the minimum vetting required, Saffel says that the GEOINT team worked to find a balance where the apps go live quickly, but there's still time for the automated code analyses and human audits that commercial app stores can't do. Check It Out After a developer submits their app, Engility does extensive source code analysis and vulnerability scanning and produces an initial findings report. John Holcomb, the IGAPP program manager from Engility, notes that an initial vulnerability report can have as many as 1,000 items on it that a developer needs to address. "It's a little intimidating at first," Holcomb says. "But we walk them through it, and they go back and modify their code—it's their code, we don't modify it for them. We might go through four runs of that on a brand-new app, but by the time we're done, they will have remediated their code down to the level that the government needs. There are still going to be bureaucratic hurdles, but it's our job to break through those." In addition to digging deep into source code, IGAPP also tests how apps function in practice, to make sure that there aren't benign-looking aspects of the code that actually underlie a shady function. "We take the compiled application and we watch what it does," Holcomb says. "Who does it phone home to? Is it sending private information unencrypted?" After an app gets approved for inclusion in the GEOINT App Store, developers continue to work with IGAPP on developing and vetting software updates so that patches and improvements can be pushed out quickly. The brokered vetting process means that the government never holds developers' source code directly. The inspection is always mediated by Engility, which signs nondisclosure agreements with developers and isn't a software maker itself. Holcomb says that the company carefully guards app data while storing it, and once a project is done, Engility doesn't just do a soft data deletion; it hard-purges the information from its cloud servers within 30 days. NGA's Saffel and Holcomb both note that developers were apprehensive about the unusual workflow at first, but over the years the app store has gained credibility. Developers say they benefit from the IGAPP process both by securing lucrative government contracts and by integrating the improvements from the IGAPP development into their commercial products. The code audits and security vetting IGAPP offers are expensive, so developers generally don't do such extensive assessment on their own. "Everyone's dream is to sell to the government, but it normally takes years of effort to get to a position where you can. In our case, I was able to sell to the government in less than a month," says Bill DeWeese, CEO of the firm Aviation Mobile Apps, which has had six apps accepted into the GEOINT App Store. "You do feel a little anxiety about sharing source code, you worry about your IP leaking and someone getting ahold of it. But I haven't had any issues, and the benefit is the increased quality of your products at no cost—you get the analysis for free and you can put it in your commercial offerings." NGA's Saffel says the governance board that evaluates the apps at the end of the process is careful to stay vigilant so nothing goes into the store by accident. The board will still push back on apps or turn them away when warranted, but Saffel says the process has matured such that most of what the board sees these days is ready or very near ready to go live. And IGAPP prioritizes its patching process and infrastructure, to make it easy for developers to push bug fixes and improvements throughout the life of an app. All of this means a consumer-grade turnaround time for critical Department of Defense tools without the consumer-grade security concerns. "NGA is kind of a unique combat-support agency," Saffel says. "With the GEOINT App Store we chose to go into a very risky new frontier for DOD and the government in general, but I think we've demonstrated that we can do things differently and still be secure and still control access. We're supporting a lot of different mission sets, and I expect that the app store will keep growing." https://www.wired.com/story/dod-app-store-does-this-one-crucial-thing-to-stay-secure/

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  27 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  Air Force to accelerate deployment of anti-jam satellite communications equipment

  by Sandra Erwin The Air Force is developing software and ground equipment to boost the protection of the Wideband Global satcom system. First in line for the upgrade are naval carrier strike groups. The Navy will get the new technology in 2022, about 18 months sooner than previously planned. WASHINGTON — The Air Force is cyber hardening military satellite communications equipment amid worries that foreign hackers could infiltrate U.S. networks. “Adversaries are getting better and more able to penetrate our unclassified or barely protected systems,” said Col. Tim Mckenzie chief of the advanced development division for military satellite communications at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The bulk of military satcom services are provided by the Air Force Wideband Global Satcom, or WGS, satellites and by commercial operators. All these systems require additional protection from cyber attacks, Mckenzie told SpaceNews in a recent interview. “Commercial satcom as well as our own purpose-built Wideband satellites were never designed to provide protection against some of the things we expect our adversaries to do in the near future,” he said. In response, the Air Force is developing software and satcom ground equipment to boost the protection of WGS networks in the near term, and commercial systems at a later time. First in line for these upgrades are the Navy's aircraft carrier strike groups in the Pacific, Mckenzie said. The Air Force will have this technology available for carrier strike groups in 2022, about 18 months sooner than previously planned. The central piece of the cyber security upgrade is anti-jam communications software — called the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW). A ground system, the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) will manage the transmission of the waveform over WGS satellites and terminals. Boeing, which manufactures the WGS satellites, was awarded a seven-year, $383 million contract in November to develop the PTES. “We are doing agile software development to enable early use of the PTW capability,” said Mckenzie. The anti-jam software and ground system only will work initially with WGS networks, said Mckenzie. If a commercial provider opted to use the PTW waveform, the ground system could be updated to interoperate with that vendor's network. Military satcom users will need to upgrade their satellite terminals with new modems to operate the PTW waveform. The Air Force two years ago awarded three contracts — $39 million to Raytheon, $38 million to L3 and $33 million to Viasat — to develop prototype modems. The Army, Navy and Air Force will run separate competitions to decide which modems they will acquire for their specific terminals. For carrier strike groups, the Navy will have to buy PTW-capable modems to upgrade its satellite terminals aboard ships. In the long term, the plan is to add a new space component — either newly designed spacecraft or military communications payloads hosted on commercial buses. “Our goal is to have some protected tactical satcom prototype payloads on orbit in the fiscal year 2025 time frame,” said Mckenzie. Whatever new hardware makes up the space segment, it will be compatible with the PTES ground equipment, he said. Mckenzie noted that the Air Force has been criticized for deploying satellites before the ground equipment is available. The PTW and PTES efforts reverse that trend. “We have learned lessons from being out of sync with terminals on the ground,” Mckenzie said. “We've been working for the last several years to develop modem upgrades that can be put into our existing terminals so we have terminals that can use PTW.” To get fresh thinking on how to develop a secure satcom system, the Air Force Space Enterprise Consortium is funding four design and prototyping projects. These are four areas “where we're trying o reduce risk,” said McKenzie. The consortium was stood up in 2017 and given authorities to kick start projects with far less red tape than traditional Pentagon contracting. Mckenzie said the Air Force is interested in new ideas for constellation architectures, payload hosting concepts, advanced space processing and antenna designs. McKenzie expects contracts for the development of protected tactical satcom payloads will be awarded in fiscal year 2020, with a goal to start launching new systems into orbit by 2025. Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and X-Band LLC have entered into cost-sharing agreements with the Air Force — contracts known as Other Transactions Authority — to map out constellation sizes, layouts, design lives, and concepts such as hosting of military payloads as a commercial service. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and SSL have signed OTA agreements to develop phased arrays and array fed reflectors antennas. BAE Systems, L3 and SEAKR Engineering received OTA deals to investigate requirements for secure satcom applications such as geo-location, waveform processing, and anti-jam. Boeing and Southwest Research Institute are studying hosting concepts, such as identifying interface commonalities between commercial and military bus providers and recommends ways to simplify the integration. Tom Becht, military satcom director at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, said the protected tactical satcom effort has been underway for more than eight years and now is being accelerated as the Air Force seeks to respond to military commanders' needs in a more timely fashion. “The demand for protected satcom has significantly increased,” Becht said in an interview. After the PTW, PTES and the new space segment are deployed, the next step will be to modernize the military's nuclear-hardened strategic satcom system, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation. Most of the users of the AEHF system are tactical operators and the Pentagon eventually wants to have a dedicated strategic satcom constellation for nuclear command and control. “Tactical users will transition to the Protected Tactical Satcom system,” said Becht. That transition could take decades, he said. “The aggregated [tactical and strategic] AEHF will be around until the mid 2030s or a bit longer.” https://spacenews.com/air-force-to-accelerate-deployment-of-anti-jam-satellite-communications-equipment