Iridium Communications has been awarded a research and development contract worth up to US$30 million by the United States Army (the Army) to develop a payload to be hosted on small satellites that supports navigation systems, guidance, and control for the global positioning system (GPS) and GPS-denied precision systems. The new experimental Iridium® payload is intended to be hosted by another low earth orbit (LEO) commercial satellite constellation, complementing the Iridium® constellation's capabilities.
Through this contract the Army intends to develop this payload to support the concept of a rapidly deployable smallsat constellation to provide more effective sensor-to-soldier data transmission when in the field. The development of this new payload is based on Iridium Burst® technology, a unique service that can transmit data to millions of enabled devices at a time from space.
