Northrop to support airborne comms relay in Afghanistan

Northrop Grumman has won a $48 million contract from the Air Force to maintain an airborne communications relay system for E-11A aircraft at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan, the Defense Department said Nov. 1.

The work consists of platform maintenance for the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) system, which receives and distributes communications among warfighters at the battlefront and command centers. When warfighters attempt to communicate with each other using incompatible systems, BACN serves as a bridge between the systems by using gateway manager algorithms and IPs that resolve the problem. 

The E-11A is the service's designation for Bombardier BD-700 Global Express aircraft outfitted with BACN.

The contracting activity is the AFLCMC/HNAK at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.