Chugach has won a $119m U.S. Air Force contract to help maintain facilities at the Ascension Island Auxiliary Airfield.

More properly known as RAF Ascension Island or Wideawake Airfield, the facility is a military airfield and facility located on Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. The airfield is jointly operated by the Royal Air Force and the United States Space Force.

According to the Royal Air Force:

“RAF Ascension Island is in the South Atlantic Ocean, near the equator, strategically positioned approximately 4,000 miles from both the UK and the Falkland Islands. The role of the Station is to deter military aggression against the UK’s South Atlantic Overseas Territories in order to maintain UK sovereignty. It serves as a staging post for flights between the UK and the Falklands with an approximate flight time of 8 hours. 

With a runway length of 10,019ft the airfield has the capability to support all types of aircraft. The airfield (called Wideawake Auxiliary Airfield by the US) is jointly operated and managed by US and UK authorities. The Station also supports regular flights between America and Africa.”

The contract also includes telemetry, radar and space surveillance tracking, timing, sequencing and communications services, the U.S. Department of Defense said Tuesday.

“Chugach Range and Facilities Services JV LLC, Anchorage, Alaska, has been awarded an $118,983,378 firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-reimbursable contract for Ascension Island Mission Services.

This contract provides for radar tracking, space surveillance tracking, telemetry, timing and sequencing, communications, airfield operations, operations, maintenance and engineering support for facilities, systems, equipment, utilities and base operating support responsibilities. Work will be performed on Ascension Island Auxiliary Airfield, Atlantic Ocean, and is expected to be completed Sept. 30, 2025.

This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and five offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $104,367 are being obligated at the time of award. The 45th Contracting Squadron, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity (FA2521-20-C-0024).”

Work is expected to be complete by Sept. 30th, 2025.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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34 COMMENTS

  1. Wideawake Field… Desolate place but great fishing… Sort of a non tropical Wake Island (which has a GREAT bar by the way).

    Cheers.

    • was there in early 70s. Managed to get to Green Mountain. Fantastic. Different planet. And planted by man.!! Hope its still there.
      Why couldnt UK fix the runway??

      • Well, if the US are happy to fix it…

        Wasn’t it a diversion airfield for the Shuttles to and from the Space Station?

        • Well the USA are a superpower, and personally I think it’s great sharing our strategic territory’s with the Americans, they provide loads, from vast logistics and protection to money, upgrades and usage. Would we even have The likes of Diego Garcia if the yanks didn’t want and need to use it?.. I’m guessing not.

          And Im sure the yanks still have a dedicated suply ship that Just goes from Florida to Ascension Island all the time don’t they? And I’m not too sure if the UK still has ships that do that dedicated job anymore (point class not included) it would be nice to know. I know airlift has replaced them to some extent but you can’t get anywhere near as much as on a supply ship.

          • From what I have read it seems the base on Diego Garcia was built specifically for and by the US, so no I highly doubt there would be a military site on that Atoll if it wasn’t for them. Whether it was right or wrong to evict the locals to do so is another matter. The US has a lease until 2036 so no change until then at least.

            There are regular UK Govt contracted supply trips from Cape Town to St Helena and Ascension, mainly delivering oil I believe. Most supplies are delivered by air. I can’t find anything on how the US delivers supplies though.

      • I find it amazing how the Royal Navy planted trees on the island for future sailing ships masts incase broken in Atlantic storms… And now it’s provided more water and lots more life to the island it’s really great, everyone who visits should plant a couple trees. I would love to visit one day, sadly I always passed by and never called in!!.

    • Morning Helions. Envy you having visited these Islands. I have been to Bazaruto and Mauritius but the British South Atlantic islands are all on my wish list

      • Morning Geoff,

        I was there in the late 80s for 2 weeks doing some tests with “portable’ (gigantic now) SATCOM equipment. Weather was bad most of time but still had an opportunity to see what the island had to offer (which isn’t much outside of the nature preserve). Caught an enormous bonefish on a fishing outing – almost had my finger chewed off! I’ve always wanted to visit St Helena myself.

        Cheers.

        • Morning Helions. I believe the fishing is world class but swimming in the sea is a no-no. I rememeber reading about at least two shark attacks, one involving a British serviceman in recent years. Here in Durban we have shark nets on all our main beaches which are 100% effective even though sharks are occassionally spotted within the nets-they apparently panic if within the protected area and just want to get back to the other side!

  2. Ascension Island has always fascinated me for many reasons including the destruction over the years of its sparse native vegetation and the establishment of Green Mountain at the peak of the island composed entirely of exotics from around the world and thriving from mists and precipitation from its exposed high altitiude. The resulting forest has created its own environment. In South Africa I have been involved in the opposite-combating invasive exotics and re-establishing indigenous vegetation.
    On topic I cannot understand why it has taken so long to start the runway repairs that have rendered Wideawake unusable as a staging post for the South Atlantic and limited to essential traffic for a limited number of suitable military aircraft and a few flights between Ascension and St Helena. This has left the RAF with a much longer second hop to MPA in the Falklands. From what I know it will be at least 5 years from closure due to failure of a section of the concrete surface, to reinstatement. This has inter alia, killed the small local economy and tourism including the closure of the Islands only hotel the Obsidian. And now another 5 years for infrastructure upgrades. Seems an awful long time. Compare these contract periods to the miracles achieved in WW2 and the 1982 S Atlantic campaign.
    Btw-the main alien in Ascension is Mexican mesquite and St Helena is almost wall to wall NZ Flax-result of a now failed agricultural experiment.

  3. Spent a few days there, post OP CORPORATE. Very interesting place. There was still old corked beer bottles in the cupboards by the turtle breeding pens. Most baby turtles were eaten by rats or the black fish, so few survive. Often wondered why they are not bred now as they were in the past. Will the EU use the satellite facilities there for their Galileo system?

    • Well seeing as they kicked the UK off the Galileo project (after we’d been a major contributor) because we left the EU, I’d be well miffed if they asked to use Ascension.

    • Spent R&R there a few times when detached to the Falklands. Even had to stay there for 3 nights after a Tristar had an engine fault, so everybody got kicked off and the aircraft returned to the UK empty.

      Found out it was Darwin who instigated the planting of trees with the help of Kew gardens. There was a plaque half way up mountain road near the gardens with a dedication to some people from Kew.

      Due to Ascension Island’s location near the equator. The island is perfect for satellite tracking. It is I think, one of the timing stations for US GPS system, so would make perfect sense for the Galileo GPS as well.

  4. What rights do we have on the airbase? I assume if it is being maintained by the US then its been leased to them.

    Its a pretty good deal if we get to keep it classified as a UK airbase but the US pays for it.

    • It is an RAF airbase with an RAF commander and operated by a team roughly 50/50 RAF and USAF.

      There is an agreement between the UK and US to jointly operate it, but as it is so important to the US they are ‘happy’ to pay for the work. I assume we were OK with it as it was, hence why they are coffing up for the repairs and upgrades.

  6. I first went there going South in 83. I also stopped there again on the way back via a herc doing death dive air refueling with Victor Tankers.
    Visited Ascension, Gough, Tristan and St Helena on a much later trip What a SouthLant trip that was with the Milenium in Cape Town.

    There was a piece on the World Service about Ascension last year. Well worth a listen. The island was a desolate rock with little natural water and a desolate posting. . They planted green mountain as one of the first examples of tetra forming.
    It obviously worked.
    Its a bloody great wet soggy jungle up there now

    • Envy you Gunbuster. A big plus for you having been in the Military, getting to these islands was part of the job with Capetown the cherry on top. As a civilian these islands are a logistic nightmare to get to plus hugely expensive. Before Covid, there was a flight from Jhb via Namibia to St Helena, Ascension now virtually impossible, Tristan a round trip from Capetown on a freighter, and Falklands-either via Chile or London and hitch a ride with the RAF!!

      • Strange place Tristan…A lot of the people who live there all look the same as a result of the small gene pool. Great people though and the shell fish and sea fish are great!
        We stopped there to do some Demolitions work on the old Lava flow which at the time they had decided they where going to use to make a new harbour. We spent a great 4 days making huffing great holes in the lava with PE4 and Cortex.
        Some one should have told us or we should have known that Lava/Pumice is really lightweight . When it flies into the air with 50lb of PE4 under it , it goes a lot further than the safety trace allows for…. Hence lots of cries of “Ohhh F**K…duck!” and people running around with there arms over their heads…Such Fun!

        • Hilarious image Gunbuster! 🙂 Tristan are in a delicate place population wise. There are about 240 of them and I hope they are not headed the same way as the last 40 odd Pitcairn survivors are! The endemism problem with the small gene pool can only get worse without either some fresh immigration or another solution which is a delicate possibility-artificial insemination for some of the suitable recipients on the island. There is of course a social problem with this but something needs to be done to preserve Tristanians as a breed.

  7. Seems like 2020 will mirror 2015. The Def sec as stated that the huge cuts were a worst case scenario. I assume the MOD will have put together a list of options based on the cost cuts that the treasury has asked them to achieve, which means the cuts will be on the order of what is reported just maybe not the same assets being cutted.

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