U.S. DoD Contracts Hughes for Ka-band SATCOM Study

Under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Hughes will conduct a study of commercial communications satellite system architectures and provide a report focused on meeting future tactical communications-on-the-move (COTM) needs of the U.S. military. Research will encompass DoD COTM requirements and scenarios using both onboard processing and transponded satellite architectures available in the marketplace. Examples will include SPACEWAY® 3, the world’s first commercial satellite with onboard switching and routing from Hughes, which today serves more than 400,000 Ka-band terminals in North America, and the company’s high-throughput JUPITER™ satellite, a 100+ Gbps Ka-band system under development for launch in the first half of 2012. The report is expected to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Command Center’s Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) Systems Directorate by July 2011.