Northrop Grumman.

Northrop Grumman has completed qualification testing of the payload fliqht software for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) military communications satellite payload. This represents the first-ever flight qualification of the new Extended Data Rate(XDR) capability provided by Advanced EHF. The company is providing the Advanced EHF payloads to Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the Advanced EHF system. Advanced EHF, using XDR capability and other advanced technologies and designs, will provide 10 times more communications capacity and six times higher channel data rates than the predecessor Milstar system, which provides Low Data Rate (LDR) and Medium Data Rate (MDR) waveforms. The Advanced EHF payload will support legacy LDR and MDR waveforms for backward compatibility with Milstar terminals, in addition to the more advanced XDR capability. The payload flight software supports all LDR, MDR and XDR terminals, and consists of approximately 500,000 lines of real-time, distributed, embedded code executing simultaneously on a configuration of 25 on-board processors. Advanced EHF is a joint-service satellite communications system that will provide global, secure, protected communications for high-priority military ground, sea and air assets. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is under contract to provide three Advanced EHF satellites and the mission control system to the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing, located at the Los Angeles Air Force Base. The first Advanced EHF satellite is in the midst of final integration and test at Lockheed Martin's facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif. in preparation for launch next year. The second and third Advanced EHF satellites are close behind in the production flow. Other military satellite communications programmes including the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) and the Enhanced Polar System a so will utilize XDR waveforms.