On April 29, Bethesda, MD-based Lockheed Martin announced the successful completion of AEHF-4 spacecraft on-orbit test and available for Satellite Control Availability (SCA).
The AEHF-4 on-orbit test (A4 OOT) successfully activated the payload,
built by its major subcontractor, Northrop Grumman, and demonstrated that
AEHF-4 met all of its requirements. A4 OOT was the first ever test to have all
six AEHF operational terminals communicating over XDR. The terminal types
include AEHF SMART-T, FAB-T, MMPU, NMT, Global ASNT and ACF-IC2.
“This is a major milestone to celebrate with our customers at Space
and Missiles Systems Center (SMC) the U.S. Air Force and our teammates Northrop
Grumman, L3 Communications and Aerojet. As we turn our focus on launching
AEHF-5 in June, one month early, I want to congratulate everyone involved in
completing this one of a kind, high-performance network in space. This is a
tremendous accomplishment for the AEHF program and I am proud of the team for
consistently exceeding the customer’s mission needs,” said Mike
Cacheiro, vice president of Protected Communications for Military Space.
The addition of
AEHF-4 to the constellation provides a new capability of global extended data
rate (XDR) communications. XDR communications provides data rates to its users
five times higher than medium data rate (MDR) and 350 times higher than low
data rate (LDR) communications. Milstar, the predessor to AEHF, uses both LDR
and MDR communication modes to directly support the warfighter.
This was the last
step before control authority of the satellite is handed over to the U.S. Air
Force SMC where it will join the combined AEHF-Milstar constellation.
The AEHF constellation provides global, survivable, highly secure and protected communications for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. The jam-resistant system also serves international partners including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Source: Lockheed Martin
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