L-3 to engineer Army's artillery support software

L-3 Communications has received a five-year, $179 million task order from the Army Communications-Electronics Command to provide software engineering and support services to the command's Software Engineering Center and Fire Support Software Engineering groups at Fort Sill, Okla., the company said.

L-3's ILEX Systems Engineering Services division will perform the work. Lawton, Okla.-based Telos-OK LLC, will serve as the subcontractor.

The two companies will make software enhancements to fielded fire support systems, including the Initial Fire Support Automated System. The system is an automated software program that runs on a lightweight computer and allows military tacticians to direct artillery support where it needs to go. Telos-OK has developed nearly 300 versions of fire support systems software for the Army, according to the company.

Under the contract, L-3 and Telos-OK will help develop command and control, target acquisition, meteorological, fire direction and software-intensive fire control systems, They will perform software requirements analyses, technical reviews, code analyses, test plan evaluations, field exercise support and other software-related activities. The companies will also provide training and ongoing systems support

Headquartered in New York, L-3 Communications had 2003 sales of more than $5 billion.