Boeing [BA] is getting ready to perform a series of what it called critical tests for its Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight nuclear-hardened Terminals (FAB-T) program, according to a company spokesman.
Boeing will soon perform its “run for the record” tests both at its Huntington Beach, Calif., facility and Hanscom AFB, Mass., to examine both its command post terminal (CPT) and its advanced wideband terminal (AWT). Boeing’s tests at Hanscom take place on the Air Force’s N404, a Boeing 707 test aircraft, company spokesman Richard Esposito said Monday.
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| The Air Force’s N404, a Boeing 707 test aircraft, tests FAB-T terminals. Photo courtesy of Boeing. |
Esposito said these run for the record tests could last into August because, in addition to performing about a dozen different tests on both terminals, Boeing flight tests a “long list” of FAB-T functions to evaluate terminal performance in a realistic flight environment and interoperability with the legacy Milstar system and next-generation Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEFH) communications satellite constellation networks and terminals.
Esposito said Boeing will also do installation and checkout, ground tests of static performance while parked, taxi tests to demonstrate performance during motion and azimuth changes and in-flight tests to demonstrate functional and operational performance with realistic aircraft dynamics. Esposito said he expects these tests to start in late May and last until August.
Boeing Vice President and FAB-T Program Manager Paul Geery told Defense Daily Friday once Boeing completes those tests, it will update, approximately two or three weeks later, the hardware configuration to the latest software build the company performed for FAB-T.
“(This) will put us in great shape to really have the total FAB-T configuration ready to deliver in a production award that we would expect to happen later this year,” Geery said.
Geery said Boeing is trying to complete the system design and development (SDD) phase for FAB-T and is currently in the formal qualification testing phase, which means the company has completed its development work. Geery said Boeing has delivered three engineering development model configuration terminals to the Defense Department and is running a series of tests that to show compliance with the command and control (C2) interfaces to the flight satellite. Boeing said April 9 it delivered the first two FAB-T engineering development models to the Air Force. These models will be tested through June (Defense Daily, April 15).
Boeing will also soon perform maintainability demonstration tests, Geery said, in which the company will purposely injects faults, like simulating hardware failure, into the system. This allows Boeing to prove its system recognizes the failure and properly reports it to the operator so he or she can remove and replace the right equipment, Geery said.
Air Force spokesman Ed Gulick said yesterday a FAB-T source selection is expected to take place sometime between October and December. Gulick declined to provide the FAB-T contract value, citing source selection sensitivities.
Boeing and Raytheon [RTN] are the two companies vying for the Air Force’s FAB-T contract to provide nuclear-survivable terminals capable of using multiple waveforms and communicating with both Milstar and AEFH satellites. FAB-T development terminals will operate in fixed and transportable ground installations and aboard B-2 and B-52 bombers, RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and the E-4B National Airborne Command Post and E-6B “Take Charge and Move Out” aircraft fleets (Defense Daily, May 1).
The Air Force wants working FAB-T terminals delivered by fourth quarter fiscal year 2015, according to a September notice of contract action posted on Federal Business Opportunities. The Air Force originally awarded the FAB-T production contract to Boeing over Raytheon in 2002, but the service became concerned Boeing wouldn’t be able to deliver, so it re-opened the competition, allowing Raytheon to get back in the FAB-T business (Defense Daily, June 12).