U.S. Navy buys first HFORCE backup radios that skip satellites

The U.S. Navy has ordered the first production run of a new long-range radio system designed to keep ships and units communicating even when satellites are jammed or unavailable.

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, New Jersey, awarded MaXentric Technologies a $9.6 million firm-fixed-price order for 12 low-rate initial production kits of the High Frequency Over-the-Horizon Communication system, known as HFORCE. The order also covers further development work, integration with a companion amplifier system, performance testing, and ongoing maintenance and sustainment support. Work is split evenly between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and MaXentric’s home base in La Jolla, California, with an estimated completion date of March 2028.

HFORCE uses high frequency radio, the 3 to 30 megahertz band that can bounce signals off the ionosphere to reach receivers far beyond the horizon, without relying on satellites. That makes it a fallback option for military communications if satellite links go down or come under attack, a capability the Navy has been pushing to modernize as HF technology had seen little investment for decades compared with satellite and cellular systems.

The order integrates HFORCE with a High Dynamic Range Multi-Carrier Amplifier, or HDR MCA, a system the Navy first put out for development in 2018 under a Small Business Innovation Research solicitation. That original program asked companies to build an amplifier capable of handling up to 36 simultaneous radio channels across the VHF and UHF bands without the channels interfering with each other, a limitation of older shipboard radio setups that require a separate amplifier for every channel in use. MaXentric was the company selected to develop that technology, reaching a mid-range technology readiness level by 2022 as it worked toward a production-ready design.

This latest award falls under the Navy’s SBIR Phase III authority, which lets the government award follow-on production contracts to a company without competition once that company has proven a technology through the earlier SBIR phases. That is why the Navy did not compete this order.

The contract does not specify which ships or units will receive the 12 initial kits, or whether the Navy plans to order more once this low-rate production run is complete. Fiscal 2025 Defense-wide procurement funds are covering the full $9.6 million, all of which was obligated at the time of the award.