Government/Military

ITT Exelis has completed acceptance testing of the navigation payload element for the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System 3 (GPS 3) Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) and has shipped the pathfinder unit to Lockheed Martin’s Denver, Colorado facility for further testing and integration into the space vehicle, ITT Exelis announced Oct. 4.    By replacing...

Manufacturer and systems integrator Raytheon has won a three-year, $164 million Department of Defense contract to deliver ground terminals for Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite communications. Raytheon has been pushing for an alternate Air Force satellite terminal program with three Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military terminals it currently produces, claiming that they already...

The second annual Hosted Payload Summit gave military and government organizations a chance to show commercial military satellite providers how much work they have done on their end to further the business relationship between the public and private sector. New hosted payload activities, initiatives and milestones by the Hosted Payload Alliance, DARPA and the Air Force Space...

The Pentagon has been busy during the past two months establishing new contract programs designed to make the process of acquiring and securing military satellite communications more efficient. Last week, the Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center issued more than 15 contracts under its Protected Milsatcom Design for Affordability Risk Reduction Demonstration Study initiative to...

Satellite manufacturer Boeing is augmenting the GPS satellite network via additional capacity on Iridium’s commercial satellite communications system as part of a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research program to keep GPS receivers working amid electronic jamming and interference.    The NRL awarded a two-year, $40 million sole-source contract to Boeing Oct. 2 to optimize technology...

Video communications technologies provider Vislink International had rolled out a new lightweight satellite data terminal for military operations, the company announced Oct. 3.    Vislink designed the rugged Mantis MSAT terminal to be deployed from a single lightweight backpack for one-man operation in challenging operational environments. The terminal can operate in X-, Ka- and Ku-band...

The board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $118 million direct loan to the government of Vietnam for the export of a Lockheed Martin Space Systems telecommunications satellite and additional goods and services, Lockheed Martin announced Oct. 2.    The Vinasat-2 geosynchronous satellite recently completed a series of...

TeleCommunication Systems (TCS), Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have entered into a partnership to produce low-cost satellite terminals for protected fixed communications and communications-on-the move, the companies confirmed Sept. 26.    The three partners will operate under a collaborative agreement signed earlier this year for TCS to manufacture, market and sell Low Cost Terminal (LCT)...

Canadian space hardware subsystems provider Com Dev International has been awarded a contract valued in excess of $4 million to provide satellite equipment for an unnamed U.S. military customer, the company announced.    Com Dev will provide switch and multiplexer equipment operating in multiple commercial and military satcom frequency bands. Work on the contract will...

Northrop Grumman has won a new contract worth $20 million with the U.S. Air Force, the company announced. The U.S. Air Force awarded the company a contract modification to add beyond-line-of-sight command and control (BLOS C2) capabilities to the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) information gateway system, giving warfighters access to full-motion video, imagery, voice...