TeleCommunication Systems Inc. (TCS) is one of six prime contractors in the U.S. Army’s $5 billion Worldwide Satellite Systems (WWSS) contract awarded in 2006.

The contract provides users with a single-source, turnkey, rapid-response solution for U.S. Department of Defense communications requirements including homeland security and disaster relief.

Since being selected in September 2006 to provide satellite terminals and support services for a joint venture between the Project Manager Defense Communications and Army Transmission System and Project Manager Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, Annapolis, Md.-based TCS has been awarded eight separate contracts under the vehicle.

The most recent award was a three-year contract to provide terminals, spare parts and field support engineers to Military Transition Teams. The contract, announced July 31, has a potential total value of more than $29 million if all options are exercised.

While the program includes classified applications, Amy Gwinn, TCS’ director of satellite services, spoke about her company’s first year’s involvement with the five-year contract vehicle.

Satellite Today: With TCS soon to wrap up its first year’s involvement with the WWSS program, where does the program stand?

Gwinn: As you can imagine, it’s a multifaceted program with all kinds of components from hardware to logistics and training. They have definitely fulfilled their mission statement of covering the complete gamut of technology, from concepts built from the ground up. WWSS is a very broad-reaching satcom vehicle, from small man-packable systems to trailer-mounted systems in the Marine Corps today.

Several years ago, we were involved with the CSSV VSAT program, a smaller VSAT configuration more consistent with that which TCS is known for, a 1.2-meter system with associated electronics. We were looking for a contract vehicle to facilitate those efforts. That grew and evolved, over 18 months to two years, into what we now know as the WWSS vehicle.

We stayed with it even as it grew, and started looking for partners and to position ourselves to adapt as the contract vehicle grew. There are six excellent companies playing in this, and it’s hugely rewarding to be able to run and keep up with them.
 

Satellite Today: Where do you expect TCS’ involvement to extend from here?

Gwinn: WWSS is a five-year contract vehicle scheduled to continue to 2011. The vehicle being so fresh, with so much ceiling left, I don’t know that anyone has looked at how much further out it could go. Since it speaks to all of the Department of Defense and any number of contractors which can come to the vehicle, you have a lot of end users.

The Army is probably the most educated and familiar with what it can do for them, but I think we’ll find more and more coming to WWSS to meet their satcom needs.
 

Satellite Today: What has been your most satisfying involvement with or application for WWSS?

Gwinn: I would hate to slight any of my customers. Overall what I’m most proud of is probably just being able to make hay out of the contract vehicle, to make it produce both for your customers and, in so doing, for the shareholders themselves.
 

Satellite Today: Can you give a specific example on an application?

Gwinn: One of the things we’ve developed is a fully deployable communication suite, a [secure Internet protocol router] or [non-secure Internet protocol router] non-classified version. Effectively what they do is provide a reachback capability, allowing the warfighter to reach back with voice, video data, imagery — essentially anything that you want to reach back for while in the field.

Providing all their communication reachback was a large hardware buy with an integrated support piece to it — training, maintenance support, in-country logisticians and field service engineers in Iraq — so that they can be deployed should anything need to be satisfied immediately. Today on the ground [in Iraq] we have four personnel: a logistician, a field service engineer and two technicians.
 

Satellite Today: Is there a consistent pattern to the eight awards you have received, or are they each unique?

Gwinn: They’re all very similar contracts, providing spares or hardware into legacy systems. Customers use this government contract system to go out and get all kinds of stuff, from hardware pass-throughs to training and logistics, putting them in touch with WWSS contracting officers and the component industry to get the hardware they need.
 

Satellite Today: What’s proven to be the biggest challenge thus far?

Gwinn: The [Military Transition Team] contract is certainly the most diversified that we’ve ever received: Bottoms-up engineering and functional requirements with actual engineering done to develop a solution and the  logisticians to go with it — training and a program with all the bells and whistles.
 

Satellite Today: How do you anticipate proceeding from here?

Gwinn: WWSS has multiple major task orders and request/task/execution plans, so I think as we’re going to be coming into the last quarter of the fiscal year, we’ll look forward to seeing the surge in the respective budgets, people looking to spend their allotted monies, and we’ll see what we want to go after, watching the calendar and the activity. It’s a very busy time for the six primes in the contract vehicle.