SmarTrend has ranked defense and aerospace systems supplier Raytheon as its top market sector performer for good reason – the Massachusetts-based company secured over $2 billion in U.S. government space and military contracts in October, with the potential to reach a value of nearly $3 billion if all options are exercised.
    According to SmarTrend, Raytheon had an overall performance gain of 3.61 percent on Oct. 18 due to higher-than-expected trading activity. "Our subscribers were alerted to buy [Raytheon stock] on Sept. 10, 2010 at $46.13. The stock has risen 2.7 percent since the alert was issued. SmarTrend has the shares in an uptrend and expects the share price to pullback toward the $46.05 support level. Afterward, we expect it to move upward with its peers in the Aerospace/Defense industry," the firm said in a report issued Oct. 19.
    Investors may be reacting to the big contract wins the company saw in the government civil space and defense sectors. Raytheon began October with two contract wins from NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center to develop and provide the command, control and communications segment and interface data processing segment for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System.
    The contracts hold a combined potential value of more than $1.7 billion over the next eight years and replace $1.4 billion in previous government contracts awarded by NASA on behalf of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
    The JPSS program, which is a successor to the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program, includes satellites and sensors supporting next-generation civil weather and climate measurements. The program was created earlier this year when the U.S. government restructured NPOESS into a civilian portion and a defense portion, known as the U.S. Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS).
   “The award of the JPSS Common Ground System enables uninterrupted support to meet both civilian and defense weather needs. It allows Raytheon to continue the development and evolution of the ground system into an exceptional operational program for JPSS and DWSS,” Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems President Lynn Dugle said in a statement.
    NASA also awarded Raytheon a separate JPSS contract to complete work on the system’s Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The JPSS contract replaces the NPOESS contract for final integration of the first flight unit and the remaining efforts for two additional sensors. The initial VIIRS instrument was provided after comprehensive sensor qualification testing under the original NPOESS contract.
   In the defense sector, Raytheon received a one-year, $30 million extension of the Information Assurance Services (IAS) contract, initially awarded by the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in 2005. The total value of this extension could reach $88.7 million if all option years are exercised.
   Two weeks later, Raytheon received its first U.S. Department of Defense production order for next-generation Navy Multiband Terminals (NMT), following the completion of system development and field-testing.
    The initial $37.6 million production award is for 22 systems, consisting of 15 ship, five submarine and two shore terminals, along with other services and products. Raytheon said that with the procurement of terminals over a five-year production period, the program’s value of system development and production could reach $1 billion.
    NMT will integrate its Extremely High Frequency/Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF/AEHF) capability with two-way military Ka- and X-band and the Global Broadcast Service.
    Raytheon Integrated Communications Systems Vice President Brian McKeon said the multi-banded ship, submarine and shore communications terminals can provide up to five times the bandwidth of legacy systems and have the potential to be selected by Army and Air Force users. “NMT gives the Navy secure communications connectivity to the latest satellite constellations that users can absolutely depend on, in a smaller package, and at much lower cost. This success keeps the promise we made to our armed forces to develop, demonstrate and deliver a multi-banded, secure terminal utilizing the Advanced Extremely High Frequency waveform.”
    NMT’s potential to service other U.S. military branches come from the fact that the system is compatible with Wideband Global Satcom and backward-compatible with legacy satellite systems.