Nichols Martin
Lockheed Martin has finished assembly and integration work on the first of two communications satellites the U.S. aerospace contractor is building for Arabsat and King Abdulaziz City’s Science and Technology organization in Saudi Arabia.
Lockheed said Thursday it shipped the Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 satellite to a company facility in Sunnyvale, California to undergo environmental tests that would simulate various launch and space conditions.
“Environmental testing is an essential set of activities to ensure the satellite can operate as designed in the extreme conditions of space and will meet our customers’ needs,” said Joe Rickers, manager for the Arabsat-6G program at Lockheed.
The company will also install communications antennae and solar arrays into the satellite as well as conduct other baseline tests at the California facility.
Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 is designed to facilitate delivery of telecommunications services such as military communications and internet to customers across the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Lockheed aims to deliver the satellite is scheduled to Arabsat in the latter half of 2018.
