Harris Corporation has been awarded a 12-month contract awarded by the U.S. Navy to provide a Harris AN/WSC-6E(V)9 Multiband Shipboard Satellite Communications Terminal (MSSCT) for the Lockheed Martin Littoral Combat Ship. This is the second AN/WSC-6E(V)9 contract award to Harris for the Littoral Combat Ship program. Harris is providing the SATCOM terminal systems for both Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, which are competing for the ultimate production award of more than 50 ships.
The Littoral Combat Ship will be a "networked" ship, relying on both manned and unmanned vehicles to complete its missions. These vehicles will communicate with the ship and other platforms via advanced communications technology.
"Our presence on the Littoral Combat Ship keeps Harris squarely at the forefront of cutting-edge, multiband SATCOM terminal solutions for the U.S. Navy and confirms our commitment to providing products that enable the warfighter to safely complete the mission," said Sheldon Fox, vice president and general manager of Department of Defense Programs, Harris Government Communications Systems Division.
"The MSSCT has become the Navy standard for wideband SATCOM on ships, and our terminals provide extremely high levels of SATCOM availability."
The Harris AN/WSC-6E(V)9 is the latest terminal in the Harris family of shipboard wideband products, providing reliable, high-data-rate X- and C-band communications to deployed small combatant and support ships. The enhanced, simultaneous X-/Ka-band communications capability enables the Littoral Combat Ship to communicate with the Wideband Gapfiller Satellites, increasing the available bandwidth to the ship.
The terminal also will provide Global Broadcast System communications capability, allowing sailors to receive large amounts of critical information ranging from national intelligence to weather imagery. The terminal's high bandwidth will enable the ship to support the Navy's FORCEnet vision by operating as a network node, which can collect mission data from off-board platforms and relay this data to other nodes.
