Harris Corp awarded contract for NextGen
August 30, 2012, 01:55 pm
Harris Corp. has recently been awarded a 15-year contract worth $291 million to provide communications for the FAA's NextGen initiative, which is set up to revamp the air traffic control system and reduce airline traffic by as much as 10 percent.
The contract is known as the National Airspace System Voice System and will be implemented in air traffic control facilities across the United States, providing a voice network for communications for air traffic controllers, pilots and other personnel.
In addition, the system will provide a secure, Internet Protocol-based voice communications network based on its VCS21 family of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) voice communication solutions.
“The Harris VCS21 solution replaces legacy technology with a dynamic, IP-based network that has the flexibility and security to support the FAA’s migration to NextGen,” said John O’Sullivan, vice president of Mission Critical Networks, Harris Government Communications Systems. “We combined our substantial research and development with COTS technology demonstrated in other demanding applications to ensure the FAA receives a proven solution without associated development costs.”
Harris Corp. is the also the prime contractor for the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure program, which supports NAS operations and provide functions with voice, data and video communications. The program connects more than 4,300 national and international FAA and Department of Defense facilities, supporting more than 50,000 users.
According to a recent study by the Aerospace Industries Association, if the government were to cut the NextGen budget by $1 billion the cost the U.S. economy would be $80 billion a year by 2035. The study also predicted as many as 700,000 jobs would be lost by 2021 in the event of the budget cuts.
The sequestration cuts would take effect January 2, 2013, if Congress does not agree on another plan.
"Congress may allow the nation to lose the resources that are needed to make this progress a reality," said Norman Mineta, former secretary of transportation, Federal News Radio reported. "Sequestration will simply evaporate what Congress and the FAA so painstakingly planned to do in the next four years. Sequestration simply makes no sense."
Mineta added that the initial cutting of the budget from sequestration would close 246 airport control towers and would cause 1,200 air traffic controllers, 2,000 TSA screeners and 1,600 customs inspection officers to lost their jobs.
Pilots supporting aviation should consider pilot life insurance, sequestration or not, because it is always good to be prepared.
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