Jerry Petersen
The Department of the Air Force has sent Congress a letter certifying that the communication service to be provided by the upcoming Wideband Global Satcom 12 satellite cannot be achieved by commercial alternatives, according to a Space Systems Command statement to SpaceNews.
The issuance of the letter is in compliance with a requirement within the House of Representatives’ version of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which threatens to block the acquisition of WGS-12 should the DAF fail to certify the insufficiency of commercial services.
The WGS comprises a constellation of geosynchronous satellites that work to provide the U.S. military and allies with wideband communication services around the world.
The first 10 WGS satellites were launched between 2007 and 2019, and have since reached or gone past their service life, according to Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of space, intelligence and weapon systems at Boeing.
Their successors — WGS-11+, which is in production, and the future WGS-12 — will feature superior communications capacity and work to defeat jamming using agile beam technology, Sears added.
The two spacecraft will also feature the Protected Tactical Satcom payload, which will run the military’s Protected Tactical Waveform, another anti-jamming capability.
Boeing is working on WGS-11+. The same company is expected to be awarded a contract to build WGS-12.
