It said the effort involves production of two satellites and replacing and upgrading ground command and control components of existing military satellite communications to support the Advanced Extremely High Frequency system.

"The AEHF system provides secure, survivable communications to warfighters during all levels of conflict and is the protected survivable backbone of the Defense Departments military satellite communications architecture," the Pentagon said.

It said 12.225 million dollars of the funds have been obligated and that the work will be complete by December 2011.