Lockheed Martin announced Tuesday that it has delivered the first advanced extremely high frequency communications satellite to Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., from where it is expected to be launched into orbit on July 30 aboard an Atlas V rocket. “Lockheed Martin is extremely proud of this significant program milestone,” said Mike Davis, the company’s AEHF vice president. AEHF satellites will succeed the five-satellite Milstar constellation, providing secure and protected communications to military users. A single AEHF satellite will provide greater total capacity than the entire Milstar constellation. Lockheed Martin is already under contract to supply three AEHF satellites. AEHF-2 and AEHF-3 are in various stages of testing and are scheduled for launch in 2011. The company is also under contract to procure long-lead-time components for AEHF-4, and the Air Force intends to keep buying more of them.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…