Jane Edwards
Defense contractors such as Harris, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon have integrated software sustainment into their practices as they work to support U.S. service branches’ efforts to build organic capabilities to sustain software on military systems, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday.
“The way the Air Force and the way Harris is teaming with the Air Force is to say: ‘OK, now we’re going to deliver the software, and we’re going to stay with the software as it’s integrated and as it’s employed operationally,’†Tom Gould, head of business development at Harris, told C4ISRNET at the Air Force Association’s annual conference.
Pat Antkowiak, corporate vice president and chief technology officer at Northrop, said there are cases where military customers want contractors to provide “direct sustainment†support.
“We’re going to be there, we’re going to try to define the right architectures and approaches,†Antkowiak said.
“We’re going to deal with some of the unique aspects of security and trust and cyber resiliency that I think are fundamental to maintaining systems over a long period of time.â€
Raytheon has also teamed up with service branches and depots to help develop organic capabilities to sustain software as well as perform sustainment work on military equipment.
“The beauty of what we’ve done over the various programs over the last three years is to prove we can come in and take over someone else’s software and sustain it as good as or, in some cases, better because we’re not wedded to that traditional code base,†said Todd Probert, VP of mission support and modernization at Raytheon.
