- Payload equipment contract for SS/L’s TerreStar program
- Immediate success for EADS Astrium on re-entry into the commercial satcom payload equipment market
Portsmouth 23 November: EADS Astrium has won a major contract for payload equipment from Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), a major satellite manufacturer in the USA. The contract demonstrates EADS Astrium’s ability to succeed in a competitive satellite payload manufacturing market by supplying leading-edge technologies and components.
This is a key contract with Europe’s leading satellite specialist, EADS Astrium, supplying payload equipment to a US satellite prime contractor in the commercial satcom market. The contract is to supply payload equipment to SS/L, based in Palo Alto, California, for TerreStar Networks Inc, an emerging provider of advanced mobile satellite services based in Reston, Virginia, U.S.
Under the contract, EADS Astrium will supply 8 flight upconverter assemblies for the TerreStar satellite, with delivery by September 2006. Upconverter assemblies are comprised of sets of switching, amplification and signal mixing components to change the frequencies of satellite signals. In addition, EADS Astrium will supply an engineering qualification model as part of the design and development process.
The majority of the design and manufacturing of the satellite payload equipment will be carried out at the company’s Portsmouth, UK site - a centre for RF and Electronics. The site also incorporates state-of-the-art spaceflight hardware production and test facilities.
EADS Astrium’s Payload Equipment Director in the UK Terry Coxall said: “This contract award is a direct result of the major investments made over recent years by EADS Astrium with the support of the British National Space Centre and the European Space Agency. The resulting new generation of Modular Microwave Hybrid Technology (MMHT) has already proven its ability to reduce delivery times and produce state-of-the-art performance for key payload equipments such as frequency converters, synthesisers and local oscillators. EADS Astrium is delighted to have confirmed its position as a supplier of state-of-the-art payload equipment in the commercial satellite marketplace.”
EADS Astrium is Europe’s leading satellite system specialist. Its activities cover complete civil and military telecommunications and Earth observation systems, science and navigation programmes, and all spacecraft avionics and equipment.
EADS Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS SPACE, which is dedicated to providing civil and defence space systems. In 2004 EADS SPACE had a turnover of €2.6 billion and 11,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services.
In 2004, EADS generated revenues of €31.8 billion and employed a workforce of more than 110,000.
For more information, please go to www.space.eads.net
Space Systems/Loral, a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications, is a premier designer, manufacturer, and integrator of powerful satellites and satellite systems. Based in Palo Alto, California, the company has an international base of commercial and governmental customers whose applications include broadband digital communications, direct-to-home broadcast, defense communications, environmental monitoring and air traffic control. SS/L satellites have amassed more than 1,200 years of reliable on-orbit service. For more information, visit www.ssloral.com.
For more information, please contact:
Jeremy Close EADS SPACE (UK) +44 (0)1438 77 38 72
Rémi Roland EADS SPACE (FR) +33 (0)1 42 24 27 34
Mathias Pikelj EADS SPACE (GER) +49 (0)7545 8 91 23
