Government/Military

Broadband satellite solutions and services provider Hughes Network Systems was awarded a contract extension from the U.S. Department of Defense to continue its current study of commercial communications satellite systems capabilities, Hughes announced Sept. 12.    The extension also calls for analyzing enterprise trade-offs between modems and teleports, satellite communication payloads, terminal constraints, performance, and operations and mission planning,...

Aerospace manufacturer ATK will relocate its corporate headquarters at the beginning of October to a larger facility in Arlington, Va., the company announced.    The company said it would continue to maintain a presence at its Minnesota location, with approximately 210 Minnesota-based corporate employees. ATK employs a total of approximately 2,700 people in Minnesota and approximately 3,500...

 Comtech EF Data received a $1.2 million satellite Earth station equipment order from a unnamed U.S. solutions provider that will be deployed by the U.S. government to power a satellite-based communications network, Comtech announced Sept. 1.    Comtech EF Data’s LPOD and associated accessories were included in the order and designed with a thermal and mechanical...

Gilat Satellite Networks has been contracted by an unnamed customer in Latin America to provide a multi-million dollar SkyEdge 2 VSAT broadband network and services for security communications, Gilat announced Aug. 31.    Gilat said the customer would use the network to provide video surveillance and command and control applications to secure various national assets in...

Kratos Defense and Security Solutions’ Satcom business unit has been awarded $6 million in contracts to provide satellite communications products, satellite ground systems, network infrastructure products and on-going services to unnamed government customers, the company announced Aug. 20.    The contract awards include specialized value added services to the military, government and intelligence communities. Kratos will...

Raytheon completed an NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) compatibility test for its Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) ground system, the company announced.             Raytheon said the compatibility test consisted of 288 hours of continuous mission-like operations, exercising the flow of mission data from the Norwegian testing site and through its command, control and communications segment and the U.S....

L-3 Narda Satellite Networks (L-3 Narda) has awarded a multi-million dollar subcontract to ASC Signal to provide more than 100, 3.9-meter, quad-band, fly-away antenna components and systems that will support high-frequency communications over commercial and government satellites.    ASC Signal will provide L-3 Narda with precision-tracking antenna systems that operate in the C-, Ku-, Ka- and X-band frequencies....

Optimal Satcom has been awarded a subcontract by Integral Systems to provide the Mexican government with an efficient satellite capacity management solution for its new Mexsat satellite system, Optimal announced.     Optimal Satcom will provide Mexsat with its Enterprise Capacity Manager (ECM) software system, combined with its Complan engineered capacity management tool. Optimal Satcom’s software suite aims...

The second of Boeing’s 12 GPS 2F satellites has achieved operational acceptance and entered service for the U.S. Air Force, the satellite manufacturer announced Aug. 22.             GPS 2F-2, which was launched July 16 and renamed SVN-63, completed in-orbit testing to join the active 31-satellite GPS constellation operated by the Air Force 50th Space Wing and the 2nd...

Satellite operator ViaSat said it is in talks with the U.S. Department of Defense regarding a satellite upgrade to improve ISR capabilities on operations and confirmed that the Pentagon is “very interested to use ViaSat-1” for the project, according to a Sheppard report.    In the report, ViaSat said the employment of the ViaSat-1 high-capacity satellite, which is scheduled for launch...