[11-26-07 – Satellite Today] Northrop Grumman Corp. completed qualification testing of the payload flight software for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) payload, the first flight qualification of the new extended data rate capability provided by Advanced EHF, the company announced Nov. 26.

The payload flight software supports all military communications terminals and consists of about 500,000 lines of code executing simultaneously on a configuration of 25 onboard processors. Using this capability and other advanced technologies and designs, Advanced EHF will provide 10 times more communications capacity and six times higher channel data rates than the predecessor Milstar system.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the Advanced EHF prime contractor and is under contract to provide three satellites and the mission control system to the U.S. Air Force. Northrop Grumman is providing the satellite payload. The first Advanced EHF satellite is in final integration and test in preparation for a 2008 launch.