US polar SATCOM programme passes critical design review milestone
Northrop Grumman announced on 4 August that it has successfully completed a delta Critical Design Review (dCDR) with the US Space Force for the Enhanced Polar System Recapitalization (EPS-R) Control and Planning Segment (CAPS) programme.
As a result, the programme is ready to proceed to the development, integration and test phase.
Rob Fleming, VP of strategic force programmes at Northrop Grumman described a ‘high-quality dCDR event that met 100% of the exit criteria within 13 months of the contract’s authority to proceed’.
EPS-R CAPS facilitates military SATCOM in the North Pole region by providing continuous coverage for secure, jam-resistant, strategic and tactical communications. CAPS is the ground segment that provides C2 and mission planning for all four of the EPS/EPS-R payloads with a single software baseline.
In addition to the ground segment, EPS-R will also include two Extended Data Rate payloads, developed by Northrop Grumman, which will serve to provide coverage in the region until the Protected Tactical SATCOM and Evolved Strategic SATCOM polar variants become operational in the 2030s.
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