EADS Astrium Awarded Satellite Equipment Contract from Space Systems/Loral

PORTSMOUTH, UK, Nov. 24, 2005/Satnews Daily/ — EADS Astrium said it won a major contract for payload equipment from Space Systems/Loral (SS/L).

EADS Astrium said the contract is to supply payload equipment to SS/L, based in Palo Alto, California, for TerreStar Networks Inc, an emerging provider of advanced mobile satellite services based in Reston, Virginia.

Under the contract, EADS Astrium will supply 8 flight upconverter assemblies for the TerreStar satellite, with delivery by September 2006. Upconverter assemblies are comprised of sets of switching, amplification and signal mixing  components to change the frequencies of satellite signals. In addition, EADS Astrium will supply an engineering qualification model as part of the design and development process.

The majority of the design and manufacturing of the satellite payload equipment will be carried out at the company’s Portsmouth, UK site – a center for RF and Electronics. The site also incorporates state-of-the-art spaceflight hardware production and test facilities. 

EADS Astrium’s payload equipment director in the UK Terry Coxall said the contract award is a direct result of the major investments made over recent years by EADS Astrium with the support of the British National Space Centre and the European Space Agency.

“The resulting new generation of Modular Microwave Hybrid Technology (MMHT) has already proven its ability to reduce delivery times and produce state-of-the-art performance for key payload equipments such as frequency converters, synthesizers and local oscillators,” Coxall added.

EADS Astrium said the contract demonstrates the company’s ability to succeed in a competitive satellite payload manufacturing market by supplying leading-edge technologies and components.

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