Lockheed Martin reports that its fifth Mobile User Objective System satellite for the U.S. Navy has been encapsulated in its protective launch vehicle fairing.
The satellite launch, aboard an Atlas V rocket, is scheduled to take place on June 24 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
"Like its predecessors, MUOS-5 has two payloads to support … new Wideband Code Division Multiple Access waveform capabilities, as well as the legacy Ultra High Frequency satellite system, used by many mobile forces today," said Mark Woempner, program director of Lockheed Martin's Narrowband Communications mission area. "On orbit, MUOS-5 will augment the constellation as a WCDMA spare, while actively supporting the legacy UHF system."
The MUOS satellite constellation capabilities — they include simultaneous voice, video and mission data transmission over a secure high-speed Internet Protocol-based system — will revolutionize secure communications for mobile military forces, Lockheed Martin said. Users with MUOS terminals will be able to seamlessly connect beyond line-of-sight around the world and into the Global Information Grid.
"Once fully operational, MUOS will provide users with 16 times more communications capacity than the legacy system it will eventually replace," the company said.
MUOS-5 was manufactured by Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, Calif., and was shipped to Florida in March.
