Iridium’s Satellite Network Operating Center. Photo: Iridium

[Via Satellite 02-18-2016] Iridium Communications has been awarded an $8.57 million task order from the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), to make upgrades and enhancements to the U.S. Department of Defense‘s (DOD) dedicated Iridium gateway.

DISA issued the funding under the Gateway Modernization Efforts contract to improve network effectiveness, performance and continued preparation efforts for Iridium Next, the company’s next-generation global satellite constellation. Iridium provides mission-critical communications for the DOD, which has access to unlimited airtime service for voice, data, paging and Distributed Tactical Communications Services (DTCS), along with its partners, under the fixed-price Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMSS) contract.

Iridium Next is scheduled to begin launching this year, with completion following in late 2017. The new constellation will offer greater bandwidth and data speeds than the company’s existing constellation.