Supporting The USAF’s Satellite Control Network

At the beginning of FY 2002, Honeywell won a support contract for the USAF’s Satellite Control Network (AFSCN). The SCN contract consolidated development, systems engineering, integration and support functions into one contract that has the potential to reach $1.22 billion, and run to FY 2017.

Under this contract, Honeywell will replace existing communications technologies that make up the AFSCN’s ground network and tracking systems with improved components and antenna systems. Honeywell’s team includes TRW, L-3 Communications, Booz-Allen and Hamilton, SPARTA Corporation, Integral Systems, Inc., and IITC. 

The AFSCN

The AFSCN is a global system that provides provide command, control, and communications for space vehicles and satellites. It provides telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) support for virtually all US defense space vehicles, plus selected space programs run by NASA and foreign allied nations. Satellite command and control is the essential mission of the AFSCN, but it also processes and distributes satellite mission data, and provides research and development support for space test activities.

AFSCN ties together various control centers, in order to integrate incoming and outgoing satellite control data. More satellite missions means more complexity, though some programs like the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Global Positioning System (GPS) have dedicated elements that are unique to that constellation. Other systems are “common-user elements” that support a number of different space programs or military space systems, and may include command posts, mission control centers, resource control centers, and remote tracking stations, as well as various communication links, computer facilities, and training and testing facilities.

The 2007 Air Force Handbook listed the AFSCN as having 8 remote tracking stations, 15 antennas, 3 data link terminals, 1 checkout facility, and 2 transportable tracking station antennas, as well as 2 operations control centers. The network supports more than 150 satellites, with more than 160,000 contacts per year.

The USAF Space and Missile Systems Center awarded a series of AFSCN contracts to Lockheed Martin in 1996, which aimed to modernize most of its segments. They covered range and communications development, network operations, network integration, and support. The program office later decided to consolidate AFSCN work, and in December 2001 they awarded the Satellite Control Network Contract to Honeywell’s team.

All things evolve, and so must AFSCN. Its initial point-to-point architecture using proprietary data-transfer protocols is slowly evolving toward an interoperable network architecture using standard protocols. As the contracts below show, that evolution is an important aspect of Honeywell’s work.

Hardware is also changing. By 2002, SMC was also managing a coordinated series of modernization projects, known as the Remote Tracking Station Block Change, to upgrade and standardize each of the tracking stations in turn. Design reviews took place in 2002 and 2003, and the tracking stations were scheduled to actually receive the changes from 2004 through 2009.

To learn more about the history of contract awards, please click here.