L-3 Communications has been awarded a contract by Lockheed Martin Astronautics to provide six Automated Data Acquisition Systems (ADAS 5000s) for the Atlas V rocket. The contract is valued at $3.4 million, with system deliveries by L-3's Telemetry & Instrumentation division to be staggered over the next two years.
Lockheed Martin Astronautics is developing the Atlas V for the U.S. Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program and to meet the launch needs of the satellite industry.
"For over ten years, L-3 Telemetry & Instrumentation has been providing Lockheed Martin Astronautics with telemetry and data acquisition systems for a wide range of launch vehicle programs, including Athena II, Titan IV Centaur, and Atlas," said Fred Puglisi, L-3 T&I's manager of business development.
"We are proud to extend our launch vehicle expertise with the Atlas V program and look forward to working with Lockheed Martin in meeting the Air Force's goal of reducing launch costs while improving this nation's launch capability," added Puglisi.
The ADAS 5000 systems will be used for launch vehicle integration and checkout as well as launch processing support of the Atlas V. Each system will include L-3 T&I's new Multi-Channel Universal Signal Conditioning Amplifier (USCA), which reduces setup times and dramatically decreases operating costs.
"We needed reliable, high density systems able to accommodate space limitations and meet launch processing requirements for the Atlas V rocket," said Tho Nguyen, project engineer for Lockheed Martin Astronautics. "The ADAS 5000 was selected to reduce the recurring calibration and maintenance costs for our instrumentation system."
The ADAS 5000 is a turnkey data acquisition system that provides signal conditioning, A/D conversion, multiplexing, processing, display, storage and data distribution. The system leverages L-3 T&I's field-proven System 550 front-end processor to provide powerful real-time data acquisition and processing capabilities for measurement-intensive test environments.
