Northrop Grumman delivers components for Arctic satellite broadband mission
ASBM-1 satellite enters thermal vacuum environmental testing at Northrop Grumman’s satellite manufacturing facility. (Photo: Northrop Grumman)
Northrop Grumman has delivered major components and begun pre-launch preparations for the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM), a crucial effort in delivering protected satellite communications to the challenging northern polar region.
The two-satellite ASBM constellation will deliver protected SATCOM to the northern polar region and is a combined effort between the US Space Force, Space Norway and Northrop Grumman.
ASBM uses the Northrop Grumman GEOStar-3 platform, which includes the main structure and systems required to maintain operation, such as power, propulsion, communications, command and data handling and thermal control as well as guidance and navigational control. Northrop Grumman also provides the payload and ground system.
The Control and Planning Segment (CAPS) ground system was delivered to the USSF in March following successful completion of the site acceptance test and functional configuration audit/physical configuration.
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CAPS is currently transitioning to the operations phase which opens the door for using the ground system for early operations with the two on-orbit operational payloads along with the capability to support the two Enhanced Polar System Recapitalization (EPS-R) payloads after the ASBM launch.
As well, integration of the EPS-R payload on ASBM-1 and ASBM-2 has finished and thermal-vacuum environmental testing on ASBM-1 has been successfully completed.
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