Airmen at work at one of the U.S. Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System sites. Photo: U.S. Air Force

Boeing awarded a contract to Hughes Network Systems to develop mission management, system control, networking and ground hub capabilities supporting anti-jam satellite communications capability for the Air Force’s Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) program.

Work on the contract was initiated in late 2018 and is expected to run through 2025. The PTES program aims to provide tactical warfighters with a joint ground platform designed to deliver protected communications services through the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite constellation, commercial satellites and in the future, the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Protected Tactical Satellites running the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW). Hughes will design PTES sub-systems to support these tactical capabilities in the first phase of Protected Anti-Jam Tactical Satcom (PATS).

“Hughes looks forward to working with Boeing and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in applying its more than four decades of experience in developing satcom networks and management systems for commercial and government enterprise applications,” said Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of Hughes Defense and Intelligence Systems Division (DISD).  “Hughes is committed to building and supporting secure global communications networks, and our team is dedicated to helping provide the DoD a highly resilient, tactical network that will enable mission success in contested environments.”