NewSat and Lockheed Martin achieve significant construction milestone for Jabiru-1

April 8, 2014

Lockheed Martin and NewSat Limited have successfully completed a comprehensive technical review of Jabiru-1, Australia’s first commercial Ka-band satellite. Jabiru-1 will deliver high-powered communications to meet the growing demand from oil, gas, mining, government and carrier-grade telecommunications customers in the world’s emerging economies.

To achieve this milestone, Lockheed Martin completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) of the satellite and each subsystem, demonstrating the producibility of the satellite design and compliance of the design with technical specifications. With CDR complete, the Lockheed Martin team will now begin the next phase of the program.

"This is an exciting time for NewSat. Lockheed Martin’s performance in space manufacturing is unparalleled, and we are pleased to have achieved another significant milestone on the path to Jabiru-1’s launch,” said Adrian Ballintine, NewSat Founder and CEO.

“After an intensive design review, we are pleased to move forward into the build, integration and test phase of this important satellite program. The strong partnership between NewSat and Lockheed Martin was integral to the completion of this milestone,” said Mike Hamel, president of Commercial Ventures at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.
The Jabiru-1 satellite is based on the A2100 spacecraft platform and will feature 50 Ka-band high-powered transponders configured in a variety of spot beams, regional beams and steerable beams to provide flexible communication solutions for a range of diverse applications. The satellite has been designed for a minimum service life of 15 years and will provide Ka-band capacity to high demand regions over the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.

Jabiru-1 carries a MEASAT payload of 18 Ku-band transponders (known as MEASAT-3c), which is designed to provide back-up services and support MEASAT’s core direct-to-home markets in Malaysia and India.