Advanced EHF Payload Engineering Model Test Is Successful

The MILSATCOM Systems Wing, Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base has revealed that on October 29th. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Sunnyvale, California and Northrop Grumman Space Technology in Redondo Beach, California successfully completed the first system-level intersegment test of an Advanced EHF Payload Engineering Model. This success was also extended to a suite of Advanced EHF user terminals consisting of the Army‘s Advanced Secure Mobile Anti-Jam Reliable Tactical-Terminal and International Partner Variant of the same type.




The purpose of the test was to demonstrate the full compatibility and interoperability of the new extended data rate waveform and protocols between the Advanced EHF Payload and new, advanced terminals. The seven week test consisted of 26 unique test cases designed to achieve over 84 objectives that demonstrated the ability of ground-based communication terminals to talk to the Advanced EHF satellites using both the Milstar backward compatible waveforms and the new Advanced EHF extended data rate waveform. The success of this test event represents significant early risk mitigation for the Advanced EHF Program.




While the first Advanced EHF satellite will not be launched until 2008, testing was accomplished via the Advanced EHF Payload Engineering Model. This is a flight-like model of the Advanced EHF payload. This tool combines engineering model hardware from Advanced EHF programs with flight software to provide a high fidelity system of system environment. The Advanced EHF system will consist of three satellites that provide 10x the capacity of the 1990s-era Milstar satellites. The system will be integrated into the legacy Milstar constellation and will be backward compatible with Milstar’s low data rate and medium data rate The system will also provide extended data rates to service the warfighter’s ever growing demand for protected bandwidth—El Segundo, California