Twelve KC 10 Extenders and six C 17 Globemaster IIIs. Photo: U.S. Air Force

[Via Satellite 12-27-13] Under a contract worth more than $134 million, the U.S. Air Force has selected Raytheon to develop a terminal that transmits emergency messages to aircrews during nuclear and non-nuclear missions.

The Global Aircrew Strategic Network Terminal (Global ASNT) is part of the nuclear command and control system that allows the president of the United States to direct and manage U.S. forces. The terminals will be installed at fixed sites, including wing command posts, nuclear task forces and munitions support squadrons, and forward deployed mobile support teams. Fielding is expected to begin in fiscal 2017.

Raytheon is actively producing AEHF terminals for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. The terminals have demonstrated interoperable communications using the AEHF satellite’s Extended Data Rate (XDR) waveform, one of the military’s anti-jam waveforms with low detection and interception probabilities.

Raytheon’s terminals currently support military operations on older Milstar satellites, and are deployed and ready to operate with the newest AEHF satellites as soon as they are declared operational.