News Review: Thales Australia SATCOM for AWD | ADM Feb 2011

Thales Australia has signed a contract of undisclosed value with Raytheon Australia on behalf of the Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) Alliance to supply a satellite communications system for the RAN’s Hobart-class AWDs.

The company will build on its experience in naval communications and its successful delivery of Project Sea 1442 Phase 3 to provide the new SATCOM solution.

Under the contract Thales will provide a global data transfer capability based on traditional dedicated US military satellites, as well as commercial maritime satellites providing Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) access.

The SATCOM solution will also provide access to the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) and other low data rate civilian maritime functions such as telex, remote monitoring, tracking/position reporting, and chart and weather updates.

Thales says UHF SATCOM transceivers and modems will be sourced through Spirit River from Western Australia, an antenna system from SITEP, and INMARSAT Fleet Broadband and INMARSAT C equipment sourced through Electrotech.

All design and integration work will be performed at Garden Island, Sydney.

Meanwhile, defence materiel minister Jason Clare has opened the AWD Alliance’s new headquarters at Techport Australia in Osborne, SA.

“The opening of the Systems Centre marks an important milestone in the project,” he said in December.

“It brings together 300 expert naval architects, project managers and combat systems engineers under one roof to get on with the job of delivering Australia’s new warships.”

“The project will see an investment of about $2 billion here in South Australia and that means jobs,” Clare added.

“Today more than 800 people are working on the new AWDs here at the Techport precinct, and that number will reach more than 1,000 in 2012.

"There are 130 people working on building the ships at the ASC shipyard like boilermakers and welders including twenty apprentices.”

Clare also announced the contract to blast and paint the metalwork for the three Hobart-class AWDs had been awarded to Transfield Services (Australia) Pty Ltd.

“The contract with Transfield Services is worth more than $35 million and will create jobs for more than 60 people over the next six years,” he said.

“Transfield will do paintwork on the blocks of the ship built by the ASC shipyard, and then will blast and paint the complete ships when they are assembled on the Government of South Australia’s Common User Facility.”