The Department of Defense's next generation narrowband satellite communications system, the Mobile User objective System (MUOS)

The Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), under the direction of the Navy Communications Satellite Program Office, PMW-146, will fulfill the Department of Defense's (DoD) unprotected narrowband communications requirements identified by the Senior Warfighter's Forum (SWARF). The Navy has begun efforts to capture these requirements for all services and has developed an acquisition strategy to procure the necessary system(s) and/or services. The first phase, Concept Exploration (CE), focused on the development of communication system concepts meeting the MUOS requirements. Trade studies and analyses of these concept studies were conducted from the perspective of a total system solution. The Navy competitively awarded four firm fixed price CE Study contracts in November 1999, which concluded in May 2000. These four contracts were awarded to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Spectrum Astro, and Hughes Space and Communications. An additional contract, specifically intended for a commercial satellite communications provider, was awarded to Teledesic/ICO in May 2000. The results of this study will be available at a later date, and are not included in this paper. Each CE contractor team provided two system concepts, with each concept assessed in two distinct business cases to examine alternatives for the procurement of the MUOS. The resulting concept designs were based on the contractor exploration of the available trade space within the constraints of requirements satisfaction, performance, cost, risk, and schedule. This paper presents the trades performed by the contractors, as well as the requirements that drive the chosen architecture.