A rendering of the Iridium payload to be hosted by another LEO constellation on behalf of the U.S. Army. Photo: Iridium

Iridium has won a new $30 million contract from the United States Army, the company announced June 24. It will develop a payload to be hosted on small satellites that supports navigation systems, guidance and control for the GPS and GPS-denied precision systems. The new experimental Iridium payload is intended to be hosted by another LEO commercial satellite constellation, complementing the Iridium constellation’s capabilities.

Through this contract the US Army intends to develop this payload to support the concept of a rapidly deployable smallsat constellation to provide more effective sensor-to-soldier data transmission when in the field. The development of this new payload is based on Iridium Burst technology, a service that can transmit data to millions of enabled devices at a time from space.

Iridium considers this a significant contract win. “This is one of the largest engineering contracts in Iridium’s history, and we’re pleased to once again bring the value of Iridium and our partner ecosystem to the fore at the request of the United States Army,” Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium, said in a statement.