TEWKSBURY, Mass., April 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Thanks to a newly
awarded $103 million Federal Aviation
Administration contract, Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) will field
the newest element in a space-based system which makes air travel
safer and more efficient for millions of travelers.
The Raytheon-supplied system will be a key feature of the FAA's
Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) which improves the
availability and accuracy of Global Positioning System (GPS)
signals to enable use by commercial and general aviation aircraft.
The company will develop a payload to be incorporated into a new
geostationary (GEO) satellite and two associated ground uplink
stations to support the WAAS system within U.S. airspace.
"The WAAS system is a critical component to ensuring our
national airspace remains safe, especially with the increased
volume of air traffic," said Michael
Espinola, managing director, Raytheon Air Traffic Systems.
"Raytheon's 18 years of collaboration with the FAA continues to
deliver accurate, high-integrity GPS navigation technologies to all
pilots within the national airspace."
WAAS significantly improves GPS accuracy from 100 meters to
about two meters. The system enables more direct flight routing,
precision landing approaches and even access to unimproved airports
and remote landing sites without dependence on ground based
infrastructure.
Like its predecessors, the WAAS GEO 6 payload will be hosted
aboard a commercial host satellite in a geostationary earth orbit
(GEO). The GEO payload receives processed signals from the GEO 6
ground stations and then re-broadcasts them to user aircraft. The
FAA operates three WAAS GEO satellite payloads at all times to
ensure continuous system availability. The GEO 6 system, along with
GEO 5 (awarded to Raytheon in 2012), will replace two WAAS GEO
payloads that are approaching the end of their service leases.
It is expected that the WAAS GEO 6 payload will be launched in
the second quarter of 2017. The system will enter its 10-year
operational phase in 2019.
As the original developer of the WAAS system, Raytheon has more
than 60 years of experience in providing global air traffic
management (ATM) technology, including precision satellite-based
navigation products. Raytheon delivers numerous ATM products and
services to civil and military customers around the world.
Raytheon's ATM solutions operate in more than 60 countries, and
monitor more than 60 percent of the world's airspace.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Company, with 2014 sales of $23
billion and 61,000 employees worldwide, is a technology and
innovation leader specializing in defense, security and civil
markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning
93 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission
systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing;
effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence
systems, as well as cyber security and a broad range of mission
support services. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more about Raytheon, visit
us at www.raytheon.com and follow us on Twitter @raytheon.
Media Contact
Cynthia
Baker
+1.714.446.4600
idspr@raytheon.com
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SOURCE Raytheon Company