ACADEMIA

A satellite communication (SATCOM) system developed by Raytheon Company has successfully acquired an extended data rate (XDR) downlink from the U.S. government's "gold standard" satellite simulator. XDR will transmit more data, deliver it faster and still reduce the enemy's ability to intercept or jam the transmission. The company's Secure Mobile Anti-jam Reliable Terminal -- Tactical (SMART-T), an advanced extremely high frequency (AEHF) satellite ground station, is the world's first contractor-developed system to acquire the XDR downlink. The technological breakthrough occurred during recent simulation conducted at Raytheon's SATCOM Integration and Test facility in Marlborough, Mass. It is an important step in putting the full power of AEHF communication capability in the hands of warfighters. XDR is a new, high speed, technologically sophisticated waveform that is a subset of AEHF. It boosts data throughput by a factor of four and simultaneously offers better data protection. As one example, XDR will allow sailors to conduct targeting missions, such as a Tomahawk missile launch, using improved graphical target data and more precise intelligence data. The XDR breakthrough follows the successful preliminary design review of Raytheon's Navy Multi-band Terminal (NMT), during which the company demonstrated the maturity of its design and the benefits that this mission system solution will bring to warfighters. Raytheon's NMT solution leverages current AEHF SMART-T and other technology developed for the Army and Navy to avoid significant development costs to the Department of Defense. NMT is a three-year, $87 million 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. "Naval mission success will increasingly depend on network-centric operations," said Fred Darlington, director of Raytheon's SATCOM business. "XDR gives warfighters the data rates and data protection that keep the networks on the air and in communication."