Government/Military

Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales and Leonardo, signed a contract with OHB System AG for the new European Space Agency (ESA) program PLATO (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars). OHB System AG will be the prime contractor, with Thales Alenia Space as a partner. PLATO will be the third medium-class (M3) science...

Lockheed Martin has down-selected Raytheon and a Northrop Grumman–Ball Aerospace team to compete to provide the mission payload for the Air Force’s next-generation missile warning satellite system, the company said Oct. 4. This competition will be part of the Phase 1 contract for the next-generation overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) Block O Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) satellites, which...

Raytheon delivered the first Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements (SeeMe), satellite to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Assembled on the company’s missile production lines, the new SeeMe satellite aims to provide greater situational awareness to soldiers on the ground. DARPA’s SeeMe program is designed to show that small satellites can be built...

RBC Signals, a multi-national company offering space communication services, and the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency (EXA) came to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaboration on an Optical Communication System for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Lunar/Deep Space programs, including the Colombo-Ecuadorian Lunar Program (CELP). The collaboration was announced today in a joint press conference...

SSL, a Maxar Technologies company, was selected through the Space Enterprise Consortium, managed by Advanced Technology International, to lead the team developing a persistent space layer prototype concept to address warfighter requirements for detecting and tracking missile threats for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency. SSL will work in partnership with Maxar’s Radiant...

In August 2018, NanoRacks was one of 13 companies selected by NASA to study the future of commercial human spaceflight in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), including long-range opportunities for the International Space Station (ISS). Today, NanoRacks shared that it will be working to complete this study and show the viability of commercial habitats (outposts) in...

Ericsson received the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) certification for its CBRS portfolio. The 3.5 GHz CBRS band for LTE will be used to improve wireless broadband access and performance in the U.S. Comprising 150 MHz of 3.5 GHz shared spectrum, the CBRS band has been used by the...

DigitalGlobe has been awarded a contract valued at $3.2 million by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide an unclassified environment with multi-source content for geospatial cloud analytics. This platform, called the Geospatial Cloud Analytics Hub (GCA Hub), will enable military and intelligence end users to leverage machine learning to extract insights at...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to vote on a critical and contentious proposal this week that could prevent city governments from charging access fees for 5G infrastructure construction and installation, and force cities to approve or deny carrier applications within as little as 60 days or as many as 90 days. The...

Exciting yet somewhat challenging times lie ahead for European milsatcom. In the next decade, the old continent’s key milsatcom players will renew their fleets — introducing new, more powerful systems designed to increase throughput, offer better anti-jam and cyber-security protection, and cover the demand for reliable connectivity for on-the-move applications.     Despite the political...