Feb. 18, 2016
Iridium Communications Inc. has been awarded a
$8.57 million task order, under the Gateway Modernization
Efforts contract, from the Defense Information Systems
Agency (DISA), to make upgrades and enhancements to the U.S.
Department of Defense's dedicated Iridium®
gateway that will improve network effectiveness, enhance
performance and enable continued preparation efforts for its
next-generation, global satellite constellation, Iridium
NEXT.
This milestone signifies Iridium's continued investment
in enabling a global and reliable, secure network that
supports mission-critical communications for the Department
of Defense (DoD). Additionally, under the fixed-price
Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMSS) contract, the DoD
and its partners have access to unlimited airtime service
for voice, data, paging and Distributed Tactical
Communications Services (DTCS). This task order reinforces
Iridium's strong and longstanding relationship with the DoD,
and enables continued collaboration and modernization
efforts to support warfighter communication needs now and
into the future.
"Iridium is proud to work with the DoD and enable global
and reliable communications for the United States
warfighters and other DISA approved users," said Scott
Scheimreif, executive vice president of government solutions
at Iridium. "We place significant value and take great pride
in our longstanding partnership with the DoD, and look
forward to continuing working together as we move towards
our next-generation constellation."
Iridium NEXT, Iridium's next-generation global satellite
constellation, is scheduled to begin launching in 2016 and
for completion in late 2017. The new constellation
will offer greater bandwidth and data speeds, dramatically
enhancing Iridium's ability to meet the rapidly-expanding
demand for truly global mobile communications on land, at
sea and in the skies.
