Datapath Inc. announced Oct 17 that the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command awarded the company a $96 million sole source contract to deliver 157 trailer-based satellite terminals to support the Army’s Joint Network Node initiative.

The initiative is a network-centric communications architecture that provides portable communications to the U.S. Army Third Infantry Division, 101^st Airborne Division, Fourth Infantry Division and 10^th Mountain Division. The latest award provides terminal deployments to the First Calvary Division, the 25^th Infantry Division, the 82^nd Airborne Division and multiple Army National Guard units.

Datapath also will provide engineering design and certification services to customize the terminals to meet the Army’s unique mission requirements. The contract also includes provisions for technical support, training and spares.

The terminal is built on two custom versions of Datapath’s ET Model 3000 Portable for battlefield communications. The system provides a mobile satellite telecommunications platform configurable for operations in the Ku-band and for simultaneous single channel per carrier/time division multiple access carrier transmission.