Lockheed Martin has successfully launched its first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas V rocket provided by the untied launch Alliance. The satellite will be used by U.S. Air Force and it will be the most advanced technical advanced military communication ever developed. It will provide highly secure environment for communication for war fighters operating on ground, sea and air.

Col. Michael Sarchet, commander of the Protected Satellite Communications Group at the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Centre, said “For over 15 years, the Milstar constellation has served as the backbone of secure military communications, helping the military operate in a secure mode without concern of enemy interference. AEHF will significantly enhance our national security space architecture, and we eagerly anticipate providing this new capability to the war fighter.”

A single AEHF satellite will provide greater total capacity than the entire Milstar constellation currently on-orbit. Individual user data rates can be up to five times higher than Milstar’s highest speed. The higher data rates will permit transmission of tactical military communications, such as higher-quality real-time video and faster access to battlefield maps and targeting data. In addition to its tactical mission, AEHF will also provide the critical survivable, protected, and endurable communications to the National Command Authority including presidential conferencing in all levels of conflict. The AEHF constellation will also serve international partners including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

“Our number one priority is delivering mission success for our customer,” said Mike Davis, Lockheed Martin’s AEHF vice president. “The AEHF system will vastly improve battlefield communications, delivering secure, real-time, connectivity to a greater number forces in the field, and their commanders anywhere on the globe. We look forward to successfully executing the next steps necessary to making this national asset operational for the war fighter.”

The AEHF team is led by the U.S. Air Force Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing at the Space and Missile Systems Centre, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Sunnyvale, California, is the AEHF prime contractor, space and ground segments provider as well as system integrator, with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Redondo Beach, California, as the payload provider.

“We are proud to be part of the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin team that has worked so hard to launch this capability vital to our war fighters,” said Stuart Linsky, vice president, Protected SatCom Programs, for Northrop Grumman’s Aerospace Systems sector.