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Intelsat General Corp., an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Intelsat Ltd., has been awarded a multiyear contract under which Intelsat will reposition one of the company’s satellites halfway around the globe to serve military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Intelsat was able to begin drifting the Galaxy 26 satellite into its new orbital position only two weeks after the Department of Defense (DoD) request, quickly solving critical warfighter requirements.

Following an urgent call from the Pentagon’s Joint staff on February 6, Intelsat responded with a solution to reposition one of its domestic U.S. satellites, Galaxy 26, to a new orbital location in the Indian Ocean region. Intelsat began moving Galaxy 26 from its orbital slot at 93 W to its new position on February 20, once the existing commercial traffic assigned to the spacecraft had been shifted to another Intelsat satellite, Galaxy 25.

The contract, awarded through Artel Inc. as part of a DoD contract known as the DSTS-G (Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services - Global), will fill a military bandwidth void supporting UAV surveillance operations. The repositioned Intelsat satellite will support launch and flight operations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) deployed in the war zones, as well as other U.S. and NATO military operations in an area reaching from Germany to Southeast Asia.

The contract calls for up to 432 MHz of bandwidth using 12 Ku-band transponders operating on the Galaxy 26 satellite, which had most recently been serving North America. The satellite, using wide-beam capability, can support up to 40 UAV sorties simultaneously.

The demands for bandwidth created by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan previously prompted Intelsat to twice move satellites in support of Intelsat General’s military customers.

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