Last week ADM reported that new multimillion-dollar radio terminals designed to provide key capabilities to military aircraft had failed initial operational testing, largely due to errors by contractor ViaSat, according to Pentagon documents.
The Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) terminals for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) as integrated into the US Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornets were neither operationally effective nor operationally suitable, Michael Gilmore, the director of operational test and evaluation, warned in an April 21 letter to the congressional defense committees.
Gilmore said that it did not reliably support the execution of missions including anti-air warfare, amphibious warfare, close air support and air interdiction.
In October last year ViaSat announced that it had been awarded an additional order valued at $5.5 million for MIDS-LVT terminals for US Navy and Air Force programs, and to support a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) requirement for the Commonwealth of Australia.
Terminal deliveries were scheduled to begin in March 2011.
ViaSat is one of two US government qualified manufacturers of Link 16 MIDS terminals.
The other is Data Link Solutions.
According to a March briefing on program delays prepared by Gilmore’s office, ViaSat changed its hardware configuration between the end of developmental testing and the start of initial operational testing.
ViaSat terminals contributed to 80 percent of the terminal operational mission failures, the briefing states, noting the company was awarded all of the first lot of limited production orders prior to the start of initial operational testing.