Army halts multibillion-dollar radio program.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Up Front

The Defense Department's ambitious program to equip the military services with a family of digital combat radios has run into significant roadblocks.

Encryption problems and an array of other technical shortcomings are throwing the entire project into question, said industry sources.

The Joint Tactical Radio System was conceived as a family of high-capacity tactical radios to provide both line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications, video and data sharing among all the military services. The entire program--valued at up to $5 billion--eventually would replace more than 750,000 radios in the current military inventory.

The JTRS version known as "cluster 1," intended for use aboard Army helicopters and ground vehicles, is scheduled for a major Defense Department review this summer.

An Army technical review, known as "early operational assessment," is slated for April. In January, however, the Army ordered the contractors to halt JTRS-related work for at least six weeks.

"Technical challenges were encountered during development and integration that indicated the need for upgrades in performance and modifications in design," said Timothy Rider, spokesman for the Army Communications and Electronics Command.

This marks a sharp reversal of fortune for JTRS, which was hailed by Pentagon officials in 2002 as a "transformational" program that would underpin the Defense Department's vision of an interconnected "network-centric" military force.

A contractor team led by the Boeing Co. has been developing the cluster 1 radio for nearly three years. Although technical glitches have been reported along the way, the Army's decision to freeze the program took many by surprise.

A Boeing spokesman said the company is "focusing on completing the early operational assessment phase of the program. The EOA, the spokesman said, "will provide evidence of the capabilities and maturity of the system."

The Army declined to elaborate on what exactly the technical issues are that potentially could derail this program. Industry sources contacted by National Defense indicated that one key area of concern is the encryption technology, which is overseen by the National Security Agency. Changes in the JTRS "security architecture" requested by the NSA potentially could delay the deliveries of JTRS cluster 1 by two years. Unlike previous generations of...