Air Force awards satellite study contract

The Air Force has awarded Hughes Network Systems LLC a $495,000 contract to conduct an architectural study of system capabilities for commercial communications satellites that would be used to support military needs.

Specifically, the report will examine Ka-band architectures and focus on the role commercial satellites will play in future tactical communications-on-the-move (COTM), the company said in an announcement today.

The study will analyze the following:

• COTM requirements and scenarios using processing satellite architectures.
• COTM applications using transponded satellite architectures.
• Multi-frequency, time division multiple access technologies.
• Commercial satellite acquisition processes.

The report is scheduled to be delivered to the Air Force’s Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate in July.