The Navy, through its Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, granted initial funding of $27 million for UFO F-11. Choice of launch vehicle and responsibility for providing launch services are among options that could bring the ultimate value of the project to $213 million. The satellite will be launched in 2003.

The agreement amends an existing $1.9 billion contract for Hughes to build and launch 10 UFO satellites. The 10th in that series is scheduled to be launched Nov. 21 from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

UFO F-11 will use Hughes' HS 601 bus, like the previous UFO satellites. It will carry a UHF payload and a protected EHF payload.

The most recent UFO satellites -- F-8, F-9 and F-10 -- also carry a high-capacity global broadcast service (GBS) payload, in addition to the baseline narrowband UHF and protected EHF payloads. The UFO constellation provides the Defense Department with communication services that range from mobile communications to intelligence dissemination and quality-of-life programming. F-11 helps sustain the UFO constellation into the latter part of the next decade.

"The UHF Follow-On program has been a success story for both the Navy and Hughes," said HSC President and Chief Executive Officer Tig H. Krekel. "The payloads have evolved to meet the customer's changing needs, while being contained within the same basic HS 601 platform. This building-block approach allowed us to add the EHF and GBS payloads without a break in production."

The UHF Follow-On satellites are replacing the Navy's Fleet Satellite Communications (FLTSATCOM) and the Hughes-built LEASAT spacecraft. The UHF mobile service is the backbone of military communications today, supporting warfighters on land, at sea and in the air.

In a separate procurement this month, a team led by HSC was awarded one of four contracts to explore ways to upgrade the Navy's next-generation mobile communications system to include higher-rate data, paging and mobile handheld voice communications.

HSC is the world's leading manufacturer of commercial communications satellites, and is also a major supplier of spacecraft and equipment to the U.S. government. Current government programs include not only UFO, but also the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). All are based on Hughes' HS 601 satellite design.

HSC also is a subcontractor on the Milstar program, providing elements for the satellites' communications payloads, and is a prime contractor developing an engineering model of an advanced EHF payload for the Air Force. Hughes also builds relay satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office.

U.S. Naval Space Command

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Some Supernova Jive To The Jetsons
Austin - November 15, 1999 -
Astrophysicists at the University of Texas at Austin and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., have developed a new theory of how supernovae explode, based on observations made at the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory.