Article Posted on : - Jun 22, 2010

The Distributed Common Ground System monitored by an Army personnel. A file photo

FAIRFAX (BNS): US Air Force (USAF) has awarded a $49 million contract to General Dynamics Information Technology for supporting its Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) and Project Liberty.

The contract will be extended for three years, if all options are exercised well between GD and USAF.

USAF and US Air National Guard DCGS sites will receive network administration, systems administration, hardware maintenance, logistics and warehouse support from General Dynamics.

GD will also give assistance to the Project Liberty and Squadron Operations Centers that support Predator and Reaper operations.

“General Dynamics looks forward to continuing our partnership with the USAF to provide sustainment and support for the Distributed Common Ground System,” Thomas Kirchmaier, senior vice president for General Dynamics Information Technology’s Intelligence Solutions Division, said in a company news release.

The DCGS is the USAF’s premier globally networked intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance weapon system. It produces intelligence information collected by the U-2, RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator aircraft from its twenty geographically separated, networked sites.

Project Liberty exploitation cells provides sustainable, deployed full-motion video processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) cells to US joint ground forces at the Corps level and below to exploit data collected from US Air Force-flown MC-12 Liberty aircraft.

General Dynamics will get assistance and support from BOSH Global Services, Newport News, Virginia in this project.