MT Aerospace Satellite Products has been awarded a contract by Thales Alenia Space for the manufacture of 81 propellant tanks for the Iridium NEXT satellite program. The Wolverhampton/England-based subsidiary of German aerospace supplier MT Aerospace will be delivering high performance titanium diaphragm tanks for the next-generation constellation of satellites, anticipated to begin launching in 2015.

This is the largest contract in the company's history, safeguarding workload for the next three years. Furthermore, the contract marks a significant breakthrough for MT Aerospace Satellite Products into the commercial constellation market.

"We are very pleased to have won this major contract, in a very significant international competition, and are fully committed to supporting Thales Alenia Space and Iridium in the success of the Iridium NEXT constellation," says Michael Dandy, Managing Director of MT Aerospace Satellite Products.

"We already have a long history of delivering propellant tanks for the commercial telecoms market. By entering the commercial constellation market, we will now be serving two different and important sectors with our commercial products. This will enable us to offer even more competitive products to our customers in the long term."

Iridium is the only mobile voice and data satellite communications network that spans the entire globe, enabling connections between people, organizations and assets to and from anywhere, in real time.

Iridium NEXT is the most significant commercial space program underway today, and will replace the current constellation to deliver enhanced capabilities the new customers, as well as provide backward-compatible services for existing customers.

As prime contractor for Iridium NEXT, Thales Alenia Space is responsible for managing engineering development, systems integration and manufacture of the space segment comprising 66 operational Iridium satellites, six in-orbit spare satellites and nine ground spare satellites.

With MT Aerospace Satellite Products, Thales Alenia Space chose an experienced supplier that has a more than 20 year history of providing titanium diaphragm tanks with 100% reliability on orbit.

"The selection of MT Aerospace Satellite product is part of a competitive process to identify the most efficient partners meeting the challenging requirements for the production of a large constellation such as Iridium NEXT," said Philippe Aucher, Iridium NEXT project Manager for Thales Alenia Space. "We are happy to include MT Aerospace Satellite product as fully part of our team."