$18M contract award for VSAT
Skylogic, the broadband subsidiary of Eutelsat Communications (Eutelsat Communications-Euronext Paris: ETL), awarded a prize to VSAT for broadband gateway earth stations for the previously announced high-capacity KA-SAT Ka-band satellite system.
ViaSat gained a contract for delivering and installing eight broadband earth stations throughout Europe, as well as providing maintenance and support services.
The earth station gateways are designed to connect subscribers of Eutelsat Tooway(TM) satellite broadband service to the Internet. The ViaSat ground infrastructure will be available for the KA-SAT launch scheduled for mid-2010.
“This award solidifies our leadership position in Ka-band earth stations for broadband satellite communications. To date, we have delivered over 75 Ka-band earth stations to commercial and military customers worldwide,” said John Zlogar, VP Antenna Systems at ViaSat.
KA-SAT is a high capacity Ka-band spot beam satellite with planned coverage over Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. With a capacity estimated at 70 Gbps, KA-SAT is expected to be (at launch) the highest capacity satellite in the world. KA-SAT is a European counterpart to ViaSat-1, a Ka-band satellite designed to deliver 100 Gbps of broadband capacity to the North American market, with a planned launch in 2011.