[Satellite TODAY 11-01-10] Lockheed Martin’s BSat-3b broadcasting satellite, designed and built for Broadcasting Satellite System (B-Sat) of Japan, was launched by Arianespace on an Ariane 5-ECA launch vehicle, the manufacturer announced Oct. 28.
    The satellite, which rode with Eutelsat’s W3B satellite, will be located at 110 degrees East and is scheduled to be handed over to B-Sat by the end of 2010. The satellite features 12 Ku-band channels with equipment based on Lockheed’s A2100 platform.
    Lockheed Martin is building BSat-3c/JCSAT-110R for B-Sat and has scheduled its launch for the second quarter of 2011.
    Separately, Lockheed Martin completed intersegment system testing of the U.S. Department of Defense’s second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communications satellite at the company’s facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif.
   The testing marks the completion of pre-launch verification for the satellite’s eXtended Data Rate (XDR) service. During testing, XDR capable user terminals demonstrated protected anti-jam communications at data rates up to 8 Mbps via agile satellite spot beams.
   AEHF, the successor to the five-satellite Milstar constellation, aims to provide global, highly secure, protected, survivable communications for warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. Lockheed Martin is under contract to provide three AEHF satellites and the mission control segment to the U.S. Air Force. The program also has contracted advanced procurement of long-lead components for a fourth AEHF satellite. A contract award to begin full scale production of the fourth satellite is expected in late 2010.