Chuck Enoch

Vice President of Space Systems, Raytheon Co. Intelligence and Information Systems Division

T he Space Systems unit of Raytheon’s $2.5 billion-a-year Intelligence and Information Systems division experienced a crushing disappointment in January 2006 when it learned that competitor Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., had won the $2 billion T-Sat Missions Operations System (TMOS) contract, the ground system that will operate the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Satellite Communications Systems (T-Sat ) program.

Fast-forward nearly a year, and Space Systems has a new leader and is in hot pursuit of a new ground systems contract. Chuck Enoch became vice president of Space Systems in April. He brings to the job a decade of experience in other leadership roles at Raytheon, including stints as director of operation support programs and director of Australian operations.

Enoch’s unit supervises a number of programs under Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division , including the Joint Environmental Toolkit software program, software for the National Polar-orbiting Earth Observing System of Systems and the James Webb Space Telescope program, and work on a number of classified programs.

Enoch said Space Systems , which has approximately 2,400 employees based in Aurora, Colo., has shifted its priorities to the GPS 3 Operational Control Segment program, known as GPS OCX, which will be awarded by the U.S. Air Force’s Navstar GPS Joint Program Office in 2007.

The GPS OCX will consist of the hardware and software to control both the next-generation GPS 3 satellites, as well as the previous GPS satellite blocks, including the 2-R, 2-F and 2R-M satellites. It also is being built to support future GPS capabilities, such as new signals.

Enoch recently discussed this opportunity and others with Space News staff writer Missy Frederick.


What did the company learn from the
TMOS competition?

I think one of the most significant things is the customer’s treatment of risk. A lot of our customers are willing to pursue technology advancements and take on a bit more risk. In this culture, I don’t think they’re quite that open to that. There are a lot of things. I don’t want to trivialize them and call them idiosyncrasies, because each are important, but we now understand this customer’s idiosyncrasies.

Now that TMOS isn’t happening, what
is your major focus for the future?

The biggest thing on our plate right now is the GPS OCX pursuit. It’s with the same customer, so basically we’ve had the opportunity to use the lessons we learned from TMOS. We’ve gotten to know them a lot better. We’ve done a lot of GPS-type systems for the Department of Defense, for the civil and national markets. These capabilities include navigation, transportation and surveying. It’s not an area that’s unfamiliar to us.

What’s the timeline looking like for GPS OCX?

We actually thought early on that we would receive the request for proposal in fall of this year. We just got word Dec. 8 that something won’t come out for at least 14 days, so if they’re right on schedule, it will come out around Dec. 22. We believe they’re being very, very cautious and want to make sure they have everything exact. I’d be highly surprised if they got the final request done this year, and we’ll likely see it early next year.

We’ve taken part in a risk reduction activity program for GPS OCX, and we’ve gotten word that our period of performance for that will likely be extended through August. So for the contract award, it looks like they’re aiming for mid-year, maybe a bit after, of 2007.

Where do you foresee
growth? Where have things slowed down?

Growth-wise, a lot more of our customers are taking a block approach to acquisition , and a lot of them are looking at separating the ground from space. When we attended the Strategic Space and Defense Symposium in Omaha, Neb., there was a lot of talk about space control, which is certainly something we’re positioned for. That includes things like space situational awareness, and defensive and offensive counter-space measures. W e have many capabilities to bring to bear for these missions.

We also think we could have a significant role to play in the Landsat Data Continuity Mission; there are several opportunities there where we would be able to contribute.

We also do a lot of weather, water and climate work, such as our contract for the Joint Environmental Toolkit that we announced in September. We’re looking at that area very strongly as it has similarities to the work we’ve done on the National Polar-orbiting Orbital Environmental Satellite System program.

I’m not sure there’s any specific area that has seen a significant slowdown, but there’s been a lot of stretching out. We’ve seen a lot of very definite timetables get extended because of budgetary pressures. GPS OCX is an example of this.

What are your thoughts on the National Reconnaissance Office’s decision to
shift its
emphasize to ground systems rather than just satellites?

What’s driving this is that in the past when a lot of acquisitions combined space and ground, generally what happened is that space got into trouble at some point, and they’d start to drain the money out of the ground acquisition to make sure the space element was successful.

What you wound up with, in effect, was a ground segment that was not optimized for the contract, but was optimized for the budget. By separating it out, you do a couple of things. We hear [National Reconnaissance Office Director Donald] Kerr and some others say that they now believe the ground is just as important as the space segment, and separating it allows the ground acquisition to go ahead, giving them lots of capability and lots of flexibility, and allowing for upgrades, and changes on the space side.

We here at Space Systems appreciate that; as we’ve argued for a long time it made a lot of sense. We’re basically platform agnostic, and this has allowed us to bring a lot of best practices to bear, such as software |code-re use, which lowers the risk on programs. It’s a good thing for us.

What are some new business areas Raytheon may pursue?

Space Radar and the D eep S pace N etwork are two. We’re tracking those. With Space Radar, there’s a large debate going on — depending on how it gets funded — on whether it will be a tactical resource or a strategic resource.

What has Raytheon been pursuing in the geospatial-intelligence arena?

Across Raytheon, we have a lot of capabilities. Here we do the ground system for space platforms. At the same time, part of Intelligence and Information Systems might be working on a related component. We approach those things from a mission-systems view — some group might be looking for a rapid launch capability, and we can possibly address that by providing such things as improved information sharing. Those various elements come into play in a layered fashion, when the whole thing is how to keep the network safe. We feel that is where our strength is as a mission integrator, to make more effective use of resources through innovations across different platforms.

What is your
major goal for 2007?

The Raytheon team is going to win GPS OCX. We’ve got an excellent group of folks here in Aurora, Colo., and we’ve built a spring board that’s going to really take off and make 2007 a very interesting and fun year.

What specific accomplishments can you point to over your tenure so far?

We took a big step forward earlier in December, when Raytheon obtained a Capability Maturity Model Integration Level 3 rating across the entire Intelligence and Information Systems unit. This means we’re using the same processes for systems engineering, software engineering, etc., which puts us in a category of about 3.5 percent of contractors that are evaluated by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute and receive this rating.