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…

Read More

Philip Harlow Interviewed on UK Radio Programme PassW0rd

On November 8, coincident with the Global MilSatCom Conference in London, Philip Harlow, President and COO of XTAR, was interviewed by Peter Warren on the radio show PassW0rd where they discussed contested space, militarization of satellites and orbital debris. You can listen to the interview here where Philip Harlow discusses the many types of risks…

Read More

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

Read More

Take It With You!

Government users need to be accommodated with portability We all love to take our stuff with us, don’t we? Makes us more efficient. Makes us feel comfortable. Saves us from having to buy new things everywhere we go, right? Just think about how annoying it would be if you had to buy a new cell…

Read More

Small UAVs: Overcoming SWaP Limitations with Smaller, Lighter, High-Throughput X-band SATCOM Terminals

Have you wondered what trends in business ultimately will be successful, and which are just flashes in the pan?  Look no further than everyday cell phones, the success of which is largely due to countless improvements overcoming Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) limitations of previous generations of cell phones and computing devices.  Not surprisingly, the UAV market faces the…

Read More

Smaller, Lighter, Further: All-Weather, High Endurance Reconnaissance and the X-band UAV

Small UAV manufacturers, take note: your efforts to build smaller, lighter UAVs with longer range and higher endurance are not going unnoticed.  Time for a quick primer on what the established competition already knows: UAVs are Size, Weight and Power-limited (SWaP-limited) applications, and thus operate better in X-band – and the reason is simple physics involving (a) X-band’s…

Read More

Control your own destiny

The satellite menu is a smorgasbord of options, particularly with the introduction in recent years of Ka-band. The search for effective Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) solutions for governments, particularly in this new world of ever-changing threats is fraught with misinformation and misperceptions. An effective solution is at your fingertips. You may not know about…

Read More

Lickity Split SATCOM Service

A SATCOM terminal manufacturer had been tasked with finding X-band space segment capacity and needed to quickly test their new mobile terminal for military users at Fort Bragg, NC. The catch was they needed service that same day!

Read More

Size Matters — New Satellite Terminals Make Way for System Flexibility

Satellite connectivity is the key to beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications on UAVs. Traditionally, smaller UAVs (Class III with max weight of 1320 lbs and max speed 250 kts) have been limited to operating with line-of-site communications systems. Because they have not been able to accommodate large, power-hungry SATCOM terminals, which require substantial space on the aircraft,…

Read More