Government/Military

A surprising political discussion emerged in the aftermath of the Republican Party takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives following the Nov. 2 midterm elections. Republicans, which traditionally have supported government spending cuts while avoiding the U.S. Department of Defense budget, now find themselves caucusing with a number of Tea Party candidates that see across-the-board...

The U.S. Department of Defense has not outlined its commercial Ka-band requirements, The Pentagon also does not have a commercial Ku-band requirement, and the military relies on commercial Ku-band for more than 80 percent of its total capacity supporting battle theatre operations in Southeast Asia.     With several military programs intended to replace Ku-band capabilities...

SmarTrend has ranked defense and aerospace systems supplier Raytheon as its top market sector performer for good reason – the Massachusetts-based company secured over $2 billion in U.S. government space and military contracts in October, with the potential to reach a value of nearly $3 billion if all options are exercised.     According to SmarTrend,...

[Satellite News 11-08-10] Vega has led a consortium of subcontractors to a contract win with the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop and deploy the Core Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) for ESA’s Sentinel-3 satellites, Vega announced Nov. 8.    Vega, a Finmeccanica company, and subcontractors ACS, Elsag Datamat and Werum will deploy Sentinel-3 as...

[Satellite TODAY 11-05-10] Integral Systems Service Solutions (IS3) was awarded a contract by the U.S. Strategic Command (U.S. Stratcom) to provide worldwide interference geolocation services to its U.S. Cyber Command (Cybercom) command subordinate, IS3 announced Nov. 4.      The deal will provide Cybercom with access to actionable information via IS3’s global network of Monics Digital...

[Satellite TODAY 11-05-10] U.S. commercial X-band provider Xtar won a bandwidth contract to provide 16 MHz of X-band services to Intelsat General from its Xtar-Lant satellite over the Atlantic Ocean, the company announced Nov. 4.     Intelsat General will use the capacity to support military, mobile, manpack terminals prior to deployment and to satisfy U.S....

[Satellite TODAY 11-03-10] The ITU has deployed 100 broadband satellite terminals in the flood-affected districts of Pakistan, the organization announced Nov. 2.     The ITU said it has been working closely with the Pakistan government to restore communication links. The satellite terminals are being deployed to restore communications and provide a platform from which telemedicine...

[Satellite TODAY 11-03-10] Raytheon has completed a system design review for the U.S. Space Fence program, which will provide enhanced space surveillance capability to the U.S. Air Force to track and detect space objects, Raytheon announced Nov. 2.     The review included the prototyping of critical system elements to demonstrate increased technical and manufacturing readiness...

[Satellite TODAY 11-02-10] ViaSat’s LinkWayS2 MF-TDMA satellite modem has demonstrated full-mesh, Ka-band satellite communications from the Optus C1 satellite between an Australian Army-deployable Compact Transmit Receive Suite (CTRS) terminal at the Australian Defense Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) and a coms-on-the-move (COTM) terminal located at BAE Systems, ViaSat announced Nov. 1.     This company said...

[Satellite TODAY 11-02-10] William Ballhaus will serve on GeoEye’s board of directors, the satellite imagery company announced Nov. 1.     Ballhaus, who served as president and CEO of DynCorp until it was acquired by affiliates of Cerberus Capital Management in July, was appointed following the close of GeoEye’s financing arrangement with Cerberus in March. The...