Paris, 30 June 2021. – Airbus will place a dedicated Ultra High Frequency (UHF) military payload onboard Eutelsat’s 36D satellite to serve Europe’s and NATO’s armed forces, Airbus said.
Military UHF satcoms are used by the armed forces for operations on land, at sea and in the air, Airbus said; “they have a high level of interoperability and are therefore very useful for multinational and coalition operations”.
As the UHF frequency band is a “relatively scarce orbital resource”, the new offering will make up for the capacity shortage around the world, Airbus said.
It has already signed the first firm orders for this capacity, well ahead of the satellite’s scheduled to launch in the first half of 2024, the company added.
The UHF payload will be operated from Airbus’s Network Operations Centre in Toulouse; its 18 UHF channels will enable up to 200 simultaneous communications over Europe, the Middle East, Africa, large parts of Asia, as well as the Atlantic Ocean up to eastern Brazil and the Indian Ocean down to western Australia.
