Army continues Comtech's support for Blue Force Tracking

MELVILLE, N.Y., April 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army is continuing Comtech Mobile Datacom Corporation's sustainment services for its Blue Force Tracking situational awareness and control system.

The continuation of services award is the exercise of the first option year of an earlier three-year BFT-1 contract and has initial funding of $19.8 million -- $10.0 million for the Army to continue to license BFT intellectual property from the company. The remainder of the funding is for engineering services and satellite network operations.

"We are pleased that Comtech and the U.S. Army will continue to work together to sustain this critical worldwide military communications system," said Dr. Stanton Sloane, president and chief executive officer of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. "The receipt of these contracts further demonstrates the ongoing importance of the U.S. Army's BFT-1 satellite tracking communication system."

Blue Force Tracking is a GPS-enabled system that provides commanders with the location of friendly and hostile forces. The mapped information is displayed on a computer.

The three-year BFT-1 sustainment contract – with a BFT-1 Intellectual Property license agreement -- were first awarded in 2014, and now have a combined not-to-exceed value of $68.5 million.