Air Force Gets Strategic Mission System Capability Utilizing OpenVPX Standards

November 16, 2022

The Air Force's new VLF receiver will be used to disseminate command and control orders and provide presidential direction to strategic forces.

Collins Aerospace has been selected by the U.S. Air Force to develop a modern Very Low Frequency (VLF) receiver that will help modernize its strategic mission capability. The company was awarded a 30-month, $42 million Period of Performance (POP) contract.

“Collins has been providing its VLF terminals for decades, and this new equipment has been designed to meet rigorous future Air Force strategic requirements,” said John Sapp, vice president and general manager, Integrated Solutions for Collins Aerospace. “Our new modern OpenVPX architecture will provide them with expanded capability to ensure our warfighters are equipped to meet our nation’s greatest threats.”

The new product line features the VLF receiver, which will be used to disseminate command and control orders and provide presidential direction to strategic forces. The receiver is Open Mission System (OMS) and Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) compliant, while incorporating modern OpenVPX architecture ruggedized specifically for extreme operational environments. The VLF receiver’s open architecture will enable the U.S. Air Force to own the technical baseline and support decades of future growth. It is architected to support other airborne and ground platforms that are part of the Air Force’s strategic capability.

The VLF receiver also provides a launch program to transition technologies developed on the Software Programmable OMS Compliant (SPOC) program to a fielded system. SPOC’s OMS infrastructure backbone is combined with VLF Radio Frequency subassemblies to create the core Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) within the new receiver.

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