[Satellite TODAY 04-29-10] The Australian Defense Force (ADF) exercised its contract option with Intelsat to purchase the remainder of the specialized UHF communications payload on the Intelsat 22 satellite, the operator announced April 28.

The option expands Intelsat’s $167 million UHF services contract with the ADF, signed in April 2009, and follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding April 28 between the Commonwealth of Australia and the United States to share UHF communications resources.

            “As a result of our direct partnership with the ADF, we are building a payload that will serve the ADF’s growing communication requirements for the next two decades. This agreement extends Intelsat’s ongoing commitment to the Australian government and exemplifies the powerful tool that hosted payloads offer government users for satcom augmentation,” Intelsat General Vice President for Hosted Payload Programs Don Brown said in a statement.

The Intelsat 22 satellite is being built by Boeing and will be placed at 72 degrees East following its scheduled launch in the first quarter of 2012.

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