Resiliency, Affordability, Ease of Use: Equipping the WGS User with XTAR

Since 2005, XTAR has provided the U.S. Government a U.S. industry-unique product: 1.44 GHz of military-grade, high-throughput, virtually-weatherproof X-band SATCOM bandwidth that is 100% compatible with the DoD’s own Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) constellation. That’s right: XTAR’s fleet of 20 powerful, 72 MHz transponders are 100% compatible WGS, and thus provides a natural, redundant resiliency…

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Winter is Coming: Weatherproofing Your SATCOM

As summer starts drawing to a close and more difficult weather begins to set in, it is a good time to consider how to mitigate the impacts of weather on our military operations. Weather can have a devastating impact on military operations – whether from rain, sleet, snow, fog, and even sand storms and dust…

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Increasing Decisive Advantage: the X-band UAV

UAV operators and acquisition offices take note: not all beyond-line-of-sight UAVs are made the same. A certain breed, namely X-band UAVs, are far ahead of the rest in terms of all-weather, go anywhere, anytime can-do ISR and weapons delivery capability. And they offer less radio frequency (RF) interference to surrounding operations, and can do it…

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Special Operations Forces (SOF) and X-band SATCOM: A Perfect Pairing

Since 2001, asymmetric warfare has become a keystone of US warfighting doctrine. Joint Publication 3-05, the DoD manual detailing asymmetric warfare, describes the complex nature of these “asymmetric” activities known as special operations, which range from direct action and counter-terrorism to foreign internal defense and humanitarian assistance. These operations are highly mobile, very specialized, and…

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U.S. Military Satellite Communications: Taking the High Ground with X-band SATCOM

On Saturday, March 18, the Department of Defense successfully launched the ninth of ten military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) satellites known as Wideband Global SATCOM – Nine (WGS-9) into orbit, bringing significantly more X-band and Ka-band SATCOM capacity into the hands of the U.S. Department of Defense and the militaries of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the…

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Satellite Communications and Security Cooperation: Achieving All-Weather Global Resiliency, Interoperability, and Affordability – by Working with WGS

Background.  On December 7, 2016, the US Air Force launched the 8th of 10 planned Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellites into orbit, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.  This latest WGS satellite marks a technological leap forward for the WGS constellation, bringing more X- (and Ka-band) capacity to the Department of Defense.  X-band is also an…

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MILSATCOM Problems? Don’t Repurchase, Repoint!

In the course of satellite communications architecture planning, like all military operations planning, it is always wise to have a main Course of Action (COA) and a fallback COA. As a main COA, all DoD program offices, acquisition activities, and J6 SATCOM planners should be purchasing equipment that is 100% compatible with the DoD’s own…

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Spotlight on Africa

AFRICA ENDEAVOR 2016 Leaders’ Forum focuses on improved strategic communications and C4 among and between partner nations and regional and international organizations

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