Astrium wins telecoms equipment contract

Astrium has won a contract to supply telecommunication products for NewSat’s Jabiru-1 satellite, primed by Lockheed Martin based in Newtown, Pennsylvania (USA).

This contract is a new milestone for Astrium in the US market and the first contract from Lockheed Martin for this type of equipment. Astrium will supply Ku-band communications receivers and Ka-band beacons to Lockheed Martin. The equipment to be supplied uses technologies developed for the Generic Flexible Payload (GFP) programme, supported by the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Ku-band communications receivers recover the very low power uplink signals from ground stations and provide frequency domain isolation between the uplink and downlink signals to avoid interference. The Ka-band beacons provide a signal to enable ground antennas to locate and lock onto the spacecraft position. All products will be delivered in the first half of 2013.