Technology company and defense contractor L3Harris has been selected by the U.S. Army to produce thousands of Handheld, Manpack, and Small Form Fit (HMS) radios under a $300-million Firm Fixed Purchase award. The round of radio production is to meet the latest NSA encryption and decryption standards.
These orders continue focusing on delivering resilient communication solutions for U.S. soldiers and providing interoperability from tactical edge to aerial tier, maintaining effectiveness regardless of adversarial electronic warfare attacks.
The company’s AN/PRC-158 and AN/PRC-163 radios feature modern cryptographic compliance that can switch between Secure But Unclassified – Encrypted (SBU-E) and high-assurance levels of encryption for coalition partner interoperability. This capability is able to meet the latest NSA encryption and decryption standards for Communications Security and Transmission Security.
These devices are compact, lightweight, and designed for tactical communication needs in the field and can support narrowband, wideband, and fast-hop waveforms. They allow voice and data sharing even for isolated units and include a mission module with full-motion video capabilities, supporting up to 200 users simultaneously.
This is not the first time L3Harris has been selected by the U.S. Army, this contact followed 2023 production orders exceeding $247 million to manufacture more than 4,000 units of the same equipment along with several other selections dating as far back as 2020 for both the U.S. Army and NASA.
In addition, L3Harris was also selected to provide MUOS-capable AN/PRC-158s for MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems and CH-47 Chinook helicopters as part of the Air-to-Ground Networking Radio program of the Army.
For L3Harris, the contract’s strategic value seems to extend beyond its monetary worth. The AN/PRC-158 and AN/PRC-163 radios’ dual-mode encryption capability supports both SBU-E and high-assurance levels, positioning the company advantageously in the evolving multi-domain operations landscape.
Furthermore, the additional selection for MUOS-capable radios for the Gray Eagle UAS and Chinook fleet also gives L3Harris expanding market opportunities in the aerial platform integration segment.
This award also strengthens L3Harris’s competitive position against rivals like General Dynamics and Raytheon in the defense communication market. Not only that, the company’s ability to secure follow-on orders indicates strong program performance that can potentially lead to additional opportunities in allied nations’ military modernization programs.
