Government/Military

The U.S. congressional super-committee created by the U.S. Budget Control Act could enact an additional $600 billion in defense cuts in order to meet its required 10-year $900 billion budget savings mark, according to Aerospace Industries Association CEO Marion Blakey.    The super-committee was part of a short-term debt ceiling solution that was signed into law earlier...

 The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) will launch its Tactical Satellite 4 (TacSat-4) Sept. 27 from the Alaska Aerospace Corp.’s Kodiak launch complex on an Orbital Sciences Minotaur-4 rocket. TacSat-4 is a Navy-led joint mission that aims to provide 10 UHF channels to U.S. troops to connect their radios to communications-on-the-move (COTM) services in obscured regions without the need for...

In February, the Pentagon’s Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate contracted Boeing to make recommendations about innovative and feasible acquisition alternatives and include ways to apply commercial satellite procurement practices to the military acquisition process. Boeing delivered these recommendations to the U.S. Air Force in July, which highlighted the importance of hosted payload applications.    Jim Simpson...

[Satellite TODAY 09-09-11] Aerospace manufacturer ATK will relocate its corporate headquarters at the beginning of October to a larger facility in Arlington, Va., the company announced Sept. 8.    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...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 09-08-11] NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) issued a five-year, $450 million contract to Honeywell to provide Ground Systems and Mission Operations (GSMO) services for the agency’s fleet of scientific research satellites, Honeywell announced Sept. 7.    Honeywell will work with GSFC to help extend the life of existing research satellites and...

[Satellite TODAY 09-08-11] Belgium’s Sea & Space Exploration has leased Ku-band capacity on Telesat’s Telstar 11N satellite so that it can deliver advanced broadband services to its customers in remote African communities, the companies announced Sept. 7.    Sea & Space will utilize T11N capacity over Central and West Africa to support an initiative called...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 09-07-11] TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) was the sole winner of a $139.8 million delivery order to provide Wireless Point to Point Link (WPPL) systems, field support engineers, associated in-theater programs, and ancillary equipment to the U.S. Department of Defense, TCS announced Sept. 6.      The order was issued under the U.S. Army...

[Satellite News 09-06-11] In February, the Pentagon’s Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate awarded a $900,000 contract to Boeing to explore ways to modify existing commercial satellite capabilities on Intelsat and Inmarsat spacecraft to meet military satellite needs. The directorate also contracted Boeing to make recommendations about innovative and feasible acquisition alternatives and include ways to...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 09-05-11] Boeing was awarded a $1.09 billion contract from the U.S. Air Force to build its seventh Wideband Global Satcom (WGS-7) satellite at its manufacturing facility in El Segundo, Calif., the U.S. Department of Defense announced Sept. 2.             The contract also includes a provision that will allow the Pentagon to procure...

[Satellite TODAY 09-05-11] Canadian optical satellite imagery provider Iunctus Geomatics has acquired the assets of RapidEye AG in Germany, the companies confirmed Sept. 2. RapidEye’s assets include five identical Earth observation satellites in orbit that were launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in August 2008.    The purchase was finalized Aug. 29 in Potsdam, Germany....