Teleconferencing keeps defense contractors on target: satellites help boost defense communications revolution.

State-of-the-art telecommunications equipment is keeping Southland aerospace companies on the cutting edge as they fight for their share of the nation's diminishing defense business.

Lockheed Corp. uses two-way video teleconferencing to send messages between divisions, said Scott Hallman, public information specialist for the Calabasas-based defense contractor.

The system enables ideas to be exchanged at lightning speed between plants across the country, like Lockheed Missiles & Space Co., in Sunnyvale; Lockheed Sanders in Nashua, N.H.; Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. in Marietta, Ga., and Lockheed Advanced Development Co. in Burbank and Palmdale.

Forty-nine percent of Lockheed's business is in missiles and space; 23 percent is aeronautics; 17 percent in services such as shuttle preparation and aircraft maintenance; and 11 percent in electronics.

Videoconferencing allows company employees to communicate to a receiving party without leaving their facilities. One camera is trained on the speaker while another focuses on the pages of a document, its contents clearly visible to the person at the other end. Transmission is via satellite and microphones allow the parties to converse.

"Rather than having to fly people from one division to the next, (you) can conduct a meeting as if everyone were in the same building," Hallman said. Lockheed has been using this type of technology for about 10 years.

The company also employs a device called electronic mail, or "e-mail," to send information back and forth via modem, he added. "You don't have to worry about the busy signals, someone not being in or telephone tag . . . it all goes away with e-mail. The message is transmitted whether they are there or not."

The benefits of using the teleconferencing system are evident in the company's negotiations with Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. on a $9.5 billion engineering and manufacturing development contract. Production of the F-22 Air Force fighter plane is a cooperative effort of the three competitors. Terms of the initial contract cover the cost of building several prototypes, but not the "full" production of the plane, Hallman said.

Lockheed is not the only aerospace company that uses telecommunications equipment extensively. At Hughes Network Systems satellite technology was incorporated into the production of Inteleconference, a videoconferencing system the Army purchased for training.

"This is the first network system of its kind Hughes Network has produced," said Judy Blake, director of marketing communications. "It allows people over geographically dispersed areas to be able to meet, see and talk to one another." During Operation Desert Storm, the military used it for language instruction.

A separate division of Hughes was awarded a contract to produce a telecommunications system for the Navy.

Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Space and Communications Group developed a satellite called Leasat that became operational in 1984, said Fran Slimmer, public relations specialist. She called the satellite an advanced communications system but although the project is considered 'non-classified,' Slimmer said she could not discuss projects the Communications Group is working on for the military.

"All I can tell you is they are using it since it is a government program. We are the builder, we don't necessarily know to what exact uses the customer is going to put it," she said.

The last Leasat satellite was launched in 1989. Since then, the Navy asked Hughes to develop a second system.

Slimmer said the company's UHF Follow-On program has "more advanced capabilities and carried more communications than the earlier satellites, which carried more signals."

She also said Follow-On was comprised of 10 satellites, of which the Navy has already purchased six. Funding for the entire project could exceed $1 billion, if the Navy exercises its option to buy four more, Slimmer said. Follow-On is slated to make its debut next summer.

Like Hughes, El Segundo-based Rockwell International has devised its own nationwide communications system to transfer data between factories and NASA locations, such as Cape Canaveral in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Rockwell's Rocketdyne Division in Canoga Park produces main engine rockets for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Space Systems Division in Downey creates space shuttles. Its client list includes the U.S. Air Force and Boeing Co.

"Telecommunications is the linkage between the division and their customers," said James Sutter, vice president for information systems. Rockwell has 16 videoconference rooms scattered around the country for such functions as program reviews, Sutter said.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. implemented its own voice-mail system companywide in 1989. It functions much like an answering machine and reduces the demands on secretarial staff. Headquartered in St. Louis, the company produces the F-18, F-15 and AV-8, used in Operation Desert Storm. McDonnell Missiles Systems Co., in St. Louis, supplied Tomahawk harpoon missiles.

"What it does in the aerospace industry is very important,' said Dave Langness, branch manager/telecommunications, of the company's system. "If you beat a customer in the development of an aircraft or missile, you can beat your competition. Essentially, it can be worth billions of dollars to you."