Space

   Milstar is the extremely high frequency (EHF) component of the DoD's Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) program area and provides world-wide links to strategic and tactical warfighters. It is a joint-Service program to acquire satellites, their mission control segment, and Army, Navy and Air Force terminals to enable survivable, world-wide and secure communications in all levels of conflict. Milstar's dedicated EHF allows strategic users to be offloaded from DSCS satellites, thereby permitting greater tactical use of those SHF satellites.

The Milstar system provides key bandwidth and capacity improvements to meet the expanding communication connectivity and data transfer requirements of operational users, especially during the deployment, maneuver and engagement phases of military operations

The capability to provide protected (anti-jam) and survivable (anti-scintillation) communication service is unique to a military system; there is no commercially available equivalent

Operational survivability and reliability needs are met by a combination of satellite orbital altitude, and system-wide hardening, jam-resistance and security measures

Acquisition Service and Category: Air Force, ACAT-1D

All Milstar satellites will have 192 low-data-rate (LDR) channels; a medium-data-rate (MDR) payload supporting 32 channels will be added to satellite #3 before launch, and built into Milstar II satellites (#4, #5 and #6).

Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, CA (prime); Hughes Space Systems, Los Angeles, CA; TRW Space and Missile Group, Los Angeles AFB, CA.