US MSC Contracts for Maritime Satellite Broadband

USNS Bridge & USS Nimitz

Far out at sea, no-one can hear your cell phone. That’s why ships of all kinds need satellite communications, in order to stay in touch beyond their immediate task group. The USA’s Military Sealift Command operates government ships, but they’re crewed by civilian mariners. To provide them with the satellite communications they need, the US Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization has awarded Inmarsat subsidiary Stratos Government Services Inc. in Washington DC a maximum $315 million, 8-year indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract.

MSC’s next generation wideband commercial satellite communications infrastructure and service will replace the current MSC Afloat Bandwidth Efficient Satellite Transport (BEST) contract. Inmarsat’s FleetBroadband service delivers simultaneous broadband data and voice, with data rates up to 432 kbps and guaranteed data rates on demand up to 256 kbps, using Inmarsat’s I-4 satellite constellation. The contract is structured as a 4-year base period from July 2011 – July 2015, plus 4 more 1-year option periods that could run the contract to July 2019 (HC1013-11-D-0102).

Rapid Fire 2011-07-18: Spydr ISR Aircraft

• NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen thanks General David Petraeus for his command of coalition troops, and hails the handing over of Bamiyan province to Afghan security forces as the beginning of full transition.

• UK Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox is set to unveil a radical overhaul of the British Army. It is expected that regular troop levels will fall from 101,000 to 82,000 by 2020. Dr Fox is also expected to endorse a review of the UK’s use of its reserve forces for frontline activities.

• L-3 uses the UK’s Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) to unveil its Spydr intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. The Spydr is based upon Hawker Beechcraft’s King Air 350-ER with the potential to be equipped with L-3’s processing, exploitation and dissemination systems.