MDA gets sizeable contract from Lockheed Martin for antennas

Credit: MDA.

MDA has received another sizeable contract, this time placed by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) Tranche 1 Transport Layer (T1TL) program.

In a press release MDA stated that they “will design and build antennas and antenna control electronics for the 42 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to be produced by Lockheed Martin as part of SDA’s T1TL constellation. This includes steerable Ka-Band and Link-16 antennas, as well as the satellites’ GPS antennas.”

The contract follows recent sizeable contracts including with Globalstar for 17 satellites that could be worth upwards of $545M, another contract with Axiom for 32 external robotic interfaces, and a $298M contract from the Canadian Space Agency for robotics on the Lunar Gateway.

Mike Greenley, CEO of MDA said “we are proud to be expanding our relationship with Lockheed Martin by teaming up on this critical space security program. Our track record of designing and developing industry leading satellite constellations – including our previous work on SDA’s Tranche 0 Transport and Tracking system – combined with our state-of-the-art high-volume production facilities ideally position MDA to deliver multiple constellation missions for various applications.”

MDA also stated that the contract “will be added to MDA’s backlog in the second quarter of fiscal 2022, with the work expected to be completed over the next 24 months.”

“Lockheed Martin was recently awarded one of three prototype agreements by the SDA to establish the T1TL, a mesh network of 126 optically-interconnected space vehicles that will provide a resilient, low-latency, high-volume data transport communication system as part of the National Defense Space Architecture.”

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media Inc. and CEO and co-founder of SpaceRef Interactive LLC. Boucher has 20+ years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine.

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