The Navy’s third satellite in Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) program has delivered to Cape Canaveral, Fla. ahead of plans to launch the bird in January, prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] recently said.
MUOS is replacing the Ultra High Frequency Follow-On System constellation and is designed to offer 10 times greater communications capacity. It’s a next generation narrow-band tactical satellite communications system intended to improve beyond line-of-sight communications for mobile forces.
Two MUOS satellites are already in orbit. United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing [BA], will perform the liftoff of MUOS-3 aboard an Atlas V rocket, Lockheed Martin said.
“MUOS operates like a smart phone cell tower in the sky, vastly improving current secure mobile satellite communications for warfighters on the move,” Lockheed Martin said.
“With the launch of the third satellite in the constellation, to be followed later in 2015 by the fourth, MUOS will be in place to provide pole-to-pole and global, secure communications for the warfighter,” Iris Bombelyn, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for narrowband communications.
MUOS-3 arrived at Cape Canaveral on a C-5 Galaxy transport plane on Nov. 5. It will undergo additional testing and fueling before eventually being loaded on the Atlas V. MUOS-1 and-2 are already operational.