Jane Edwards
The U.S. Air Force has scheduled the launch of the Boeing-built Wideband Global SATCOM 8 satellite for Dec. 7 aboard a United Launch Alliance-made Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, space and missile systems center commander and Air Force program executive officer for space, said in a statement released Monday that WGS-8 will work to support Ka– and X-band communications as well as increase the WGS constellation’s wideband communications capacity in support of U.S. warfighters and allied forces.
The service branch said the WGS-8 satellite has a digital channelizer platform designed to boost communication capacity.
The military branch’s 3rd space operations squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado operates the WGS constellation.
The WGS constellation is composed of military communications satellites that work to help combatant commanders perform command-and-control functions as well as provide tactical forces connectivity to the Defense Information Systems Network.
The Air Force space and missile systems center’s wideband MILSATCOM division oversees the development, acquisition, deployment and sustainment of the WGS program.
