The U.S. Air Force will release a request for information on commercial satellite communications offerings for the military within the next few weeks, Space News reported Wednesday. Col. George Nagy of the office of the Defense Department‘s principal space adviser has said the Air Force began a $7.8 million Wideband Analysis of Alternatives in December as part of […] More
United Launch Alliance launched a Boeing-built satellite into orbit Saturday aboard a Delta IV rocket to provide military communications support for the U.S. military and six of the country’s allies. The ninth Wideband Global SATCOM satellite with updated digital channelizers that are designed to nearly double the bandwidth of earlier satellites in the WGS system, Boeing said Saturday. Boeing is contracted to build 10 WGS […] More
Skot Butler, president of Intelsat General, has said he thinks there will be a demand for multi-band satellite communications services within the Defense Department in an effort to provide users with more choices, Space News reported Tuesday. Butler told SpaceNews editor-in-chief Brian Berger in an interview that the U.S. Air Force's Wideband Analysis of Alternatives seems to […] More
Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, a senior vice president at Inmarsat, has listed six attributes of the company’s Global Xpress commercial satellite network intended to help fulfill requirements of mobile government users. Cowen-Hirsch wrote in a blog post published Tuesday Global Xpress is a globally-available commercial wideband network that works to meet the U.S. government’s mobile and interoperable communication needs. Global Xpress uses a […] More
General Dynamics‘ Mission Systems-Canada subsidiary has awarded Newtec a contract to provide an ATR-sized airborne modem to Canada in support of the country’s efforts to modernize its CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft fleet. Canada’s defense department will install Newtec’s MDM9000 Satellite Modem to the Aurora as part of the military’s Aurora Incremental Modernization Project Block IV program, Newtech said Thursday. Koen Willems, Newtec […] More
Boeing has received a $46.2 million contract from the U.S. Army to provide support for the wideband satellite communications operational management system. The Defense Department said Friday work will occur through Sept. 1, 2021 and that performance locations and funds will be determined with every order. The Army Contracting Command received one offer for the contract through an online […] More
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and XTAR have demonstrated a high-throughput intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance service on a C-130 hatch with the use of the former company’s AIRLINK X-1 antenna. AIRLINK X-1 was certified to access XTAR satellites after a terminal sent 4.5 megabits per second of data through the XTAR-LANT satellite during the demonstration that occurred […] More
Northrop Grumman, ViaSat and Optus have partnered to offer a technology for Australian armed forces to leverage a wideband global satellite communications network. The alliance proposed to give the Australian military access to the Satcom Operations and Planning Element, a Northrop-built network management system designed to integrate with WGS, Northrop said Monday. Ian Irving, chief […] More
Boeing received initial on-orbit signals from its Wideband Global SATCOM 7 satellite following the spacecraft’s Wednesday launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The company said Thursday it built WGS-7 to deliver 17 percent more communications bandwidth capacity to the U.S. military and allied forces. Dan Hart, vice president of Boeing’s government space […] More
The U.S. Air Force has launched a Boeing-built Wideband Global SATCOM 7 military communications satellite into space. Boeing said Thursday the satellite onboard a United Launch Alliance-made Delta IV rocket lifted off from a launch complex at Florida-based Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Wednesday. The company said the WGS-7 satellite has a digital payload component designed to improve […] More
