The Pentagon is awarding $119,000,000 in funds to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. This award is a firm-fixed price contract for launches using an Atlas V launch vehicle under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program to launch the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)-2 satellites. The operator will be the U.S.A.F. and Lockheed Martin is the bus contractor, TRW the payload contractor.
The AEHF-2 is a highly secure, high capacity, survivable communications satellite for U.S. warfighters will be the Department of Defense’s (DoD) protected backbone for military satellite communications architecture. This system will merge into the legacy Military Strategic & Tactical Relay (Milstar) constellation. Plus, legacy compatibility with Milstar’s LDR (low data rate) and MDR (medium data rate) capabilities are included.
The AEHF-2 will bring into play XDR (extreme data rates) and much larger capacity, but at less cost than Milstar. The satellites that comprise the AEHF set will use an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) for orbit placement. Of the original six AEHF satellites planned, there are now only three scheduled for on-orbit use as the nextgen T-Sat is expected shortly—Littleton, Colorado—August 31, 2007
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