U.S. Soldiers assigned to 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division utilize the Starshield for connectivity during command post operations during Combined Resolve 25-01 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels Training Area, Hohenfels, Germany, Jan. 15, 2025. The Starshield utilizes a satellite constellation designed to provide secure and reliable communication services in contested environments. During Combined Resolve 25-1, the U.S. Army is implementing its Transforming in Contact initiative, utilizing new technologies and systems designed to enhance its warfighting readiness and ability to respond to crisis or conflict. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Thomas McCarty)

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — Through the Transformation in Contact initiative, the Army is rapidly equipping Soldiers with the latest commercial and military technologies to accelerate fielding and bridge to the next generation of warfighting capabilities. Thanks to a tactical communications system developed by the Army’s S&T experts and being delivered as part of TiC 2.0, some of those “next gen” capabilities are already in Soldiers’ hands.

Over the past nine months, the Army’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, C5ISR, Center has designed, developed and deployed its tactical communication and video-teleconferencing capability, or TCVC, in response to an urgent operational need for secure, reliable communications in a challenging, high-mobility and dynamic environment.

TCVC provides tactical classified video-teleconferencing communications that is multi-modal, transport agnostic, and provides primary, alternate, contingency and emergency, or PACE, network options for Soldiers in contested and congested environments.

“Existing communication infrastructure is either insufficient, immobile, or both, and commercially available solutions lack the necessary security protocols and adaptability to meet specific mission requirements,” said Chad Nash, division chief within the C5ISR Center. “TCVC supports mission readiness, rapid capability delivery, and support for critical priorities in multiple theaters.”

After quickly identifying an industry partner capable of establishing a production line, the Center’s TCVC team leveraged its multifaceted expertise across component procurement, Classified Communications Item requirements approval, complex system integration, and rigorous validation and testing to deploy the first TCVC systems last month.

Headquarters, Department of the Army, G-2, which nominated TCVC for TiC 2.0, plans to field more than 80 systems in the near future. The system is also informing the Army’s future classified point of presence capabilities, which will look to leverage a similarly accelerated timeline to move away from traditional requirements generation and procurement.

“What Transformation in Contact has done for us is it gave us lessons from the actual Soldiers using the equipment that we thought might work,” said Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll during a brief to the House Armed Services Committee on June 4, 2025. “What had happened historically to contrast with that was long procurement documents were created with hundreds and hundreds of requirements that then by the time the document was signed it was already outdated technology, and then by the time it was actually fielded it was even worse, and just what we’re seeing on the battlefield, that will no longer work.”

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The U.S. Army Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center is the Army’s applied research and advanced technology development center for C5ISR capabilities. As the Army’s primary integrator of C5ISR technologies and systems, DEVCOM C5ISR Center supports our networked Warfighters by identifying, developing, maturing, and rapidly integrating innovative technologies to drive continuous transformation.

DEVCOM C5ISR Center is an asset of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. DEVCOM is Army Futures Command’s leader and integrator within a global ecosystem of scientific exploration and technological innovation. DEVCOM expertise spans eight major competency areas to provide integrated research, development, analysis and engineering support to the Army and DOD. From rockets to robots, drones to dozers, and aviation to artillery – DEVCOM innovation is at the core of the combat capabilities American Warfighters need to win on the battlefield of the future. For more information, visit c5isrcenter.devcom.army.mil/.