Government/Military

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) awarded Thinkom Solutions a contract for next-generation communications on U.S. Navy ships. ThinKom will test and evaluate one of its Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) aeronautical phased-array antenna systems as a solution for the seven-month contract. Specifically, ThinKom is delivering a ThinAir Ka2517 antenna system for on-board...

The U.S. Air Force awarded Earth Observant Inc. (EOI) a contract to develop a Very Low-Earth Orbit (VLEO) optical payload. Earth Observant received this award under the under the Pentagon’s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, and is working with AFWERX, the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)....

Globalstar Europe Satellite Services has revealed details of a key new deployment of its technology in Spain. The company announced Aug. 6 that its 550 SPOT Gen3 satellite enabled safety devices are being deployed to safeguard and track firefighters across the vast expanse of Andalusia in southern Spain. INFOCA is one of the largest fire...

L3Harris Technologies has completed a critical design review for the U.S. Air Force’s first Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) program, the manufacturer announced. NTS-3 is designed to improve the resiliency of the military’s positioning, navigation and timing capabilities. The U.S. government’s Space Enterprise Consortium selected L3Harris as the NTS-3 prime system integrator two years ago in...

ABL Space Systems was awarded two U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contracts worth $44.5 million, and completed a funding round valued at $49 million. Additionally, the company began testing its RS1 smallsat launch vehicle, with a demonstration launch planned for Q1 2021. ABL’s DoD contracts were awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S....

Viasat is rolling out a new Dynamic Video Encoding (DVE) capability that optimizes sensor data for military aircraft on Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions. The new DVE capability helps aircraft optimize their available bandwidth and video transmissions to and from an aircraft. As military aircraft on ISR missions traverse within a single beam and/or...

The FCC granted Amazon approval on Thursday to build out Project Kuiper, its planned constellation of 3,236 satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) that will deliver low-latency broadband internet. Along with the approval, Amazon invested $10 billion into the project.  According to the FCC order, Kuiper will be deployed in five phases, and service will begin...

Eutelsat Communications and Intelsat secured the 48 degrees East orbital position for the EUTELSAT QUANTUM satellite, in which both operators have orbital rights. The satellite is well-suited for coverage in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the 48 degrees East position, and it is expected to launch by the end of 2020....

Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe has placed a hold on the nomination of Mike O’Rielly to be FCC Commissioner over the FCC’s recent Ligado decision. Inhofe announced Tuesday that he has placed a hold on the nomination until O’Rielly publicly commits to vote to overturn the Ligado order.   In April, the FCC unanimously approved Ligado’s...

Harmonic will partner with SES for technology upgrades associated with SES’s process to clear C-band spectrum. The companies announced Monday they will work together to fast-track this deployment, by freeing up spectrum for 5G while maintaining SES C-band video service quality. SES and Harmonic will work jointly to deploy Harmonic’s XOS media processing in the headend...