By Ann Roosevelt
ITT Corp.‘s [ITT] Night Vision is running night and day to supply the United States and its allies with night vision equipment, according to officials.
“[We are] basically running 24/7 operations in some of our departments in the factory at Roanoke in keeping up with the demand of the U.S. military and our allies in the Global War on Terrorism,” Mike Alvis, ITT Night Vision vice president, Business Development, said in an interview.
In April, the Army completed its first unit equipped with the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle (ENVG), or AN/PSQ-20. The sensor-fused, helmet-mounted monocular optically combines an image intensification (I2) image and next generation infrared (IR) image, allowing solders to have improved mobility and situational awareness, through clear target detection and identification.
The sole provider of the ENVG, ITT went on contract with the Army in 2005. The total potential value of the contract is $560 million over five years. On June 10, the Army awarded the company a $24.4 million follow-on order for the AN/PSQ-20.
ITT Night Vision has some 200 different products and 400 different configurations, which means it has a multitude of contracts.
“Just with Navy-Crane, we have 30 contracts,” Alvis said.
In 2005, ITT Night Vision received an Omnibus VII Army indefinite delivery indefinite quantity with a potential value of $1.39 billion over the period 2005-2009 for N/PVS-14 Monocular Night Vision devices and the AN/PVS-7 night vision goggles. Of the two contracts awarded, the other to L-3 Communications [LLL], each contractor received the same potential award of up to 370, 486 AN/PVS-14 and 34,300 AN/PVS-7 goggles and spare tubes for both.
That’s modernizing the Army and replacing the PVS-5 generation two goggle, and eventually to replace the PVS-7, Alvis said.
PVS-14 is the “mainstay” of the night vision program in the Army, with an acquisition objective of 736,000.
“By the end of 2007, we received under Omnibus VII orders for more than 250,000 PVS-14s,” Don Morello, director of U.S. Military Marketing, said. Along with that were orders for 100,000 spare tubes.
The third generation tube demonstrated that it meets the Army’s 10,000 minimum specification, which is four times the second generation tube, Morello said, and “goes far beyond it,” but they haven’t tested the tubes until they die because they’d run out of test space. They do know from extrapolation that the life is extremely long.
The impact on the lifecycle costs is tremendous, Alvis said.
Device sustainment is another part of the work. While ITT Night Vision no longer makes second generation night vision–the Army has to go elsewhere for PVS-5 spares– there are still a lot of PVS-7 devices in use, and the mainstay is the PVS-14.
Additionally, the unit makes specialized devices for special customers. Allies have their own special requirements.
“We run a boutique operation and a large volume standard product factory,” Alvis said.
Special work generally involves the image tubes by size, shape or capability, he said. For example, “we are the only company in the world that makes a Gen 3, 25 millimeter tube that goes into special weapon sights or driver’s viewers,” Morello said. The tube then becomes a critical component in a system.
For example, ITT Night Vision provides the tubes for the Predator UAV, B-52 aircraft and special operations helicopters.