Phase I supported a continental United States (CONUS) testbed. The first launch of WGS-1 was conducted by United Launch Alliance (ULA) on 11 October 2007, at 00:22 UTC. WGS provides two-way X-band and Ka-band communications as well as Ka-band broadcast services to US Armed Forces and other agencies worldwide. The Wideband Gapfiller Satellite System is limited to the Gapfiller satellites and associated control equipment and software that augment currently existing facilities. XIPS, the Xenon Ion Propulsion System, has flown on numerous spacecraft and is ten times more efficient than the conventional chemical propulsion systems, the only disadvantage being the low thrust that can be achieved with the system leading to a longer time frame needed between launch and Beginning of Service. SATCOM Services. It carries Ka-band and X-band transponders with 8.088 gigahertz of bandwidth offering downlink speeds of up to 11gigabits per second. Enabled by a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink will provide fast, reliable internet to populations with little or no connectivity, including those in rural communities and places where existing services are too expensive or unreliable. Each WGS satellite is digitally channelized and transponded. After launch, the WGS-1 satellite was given the U.S. military designation USA-195. As of the latest revision, the WGS 84 datum surface is a pole-flattened ( oblate) spheroid, with major ( transverse) radius a = 6,378,137 m at the equator, and minor ( conjugate) radius b = 6,356,752.314 245 m at the poles (a flattening of 21.384 685 755 km, or 1/298.257 223 563 0.335% in relative terms). The 2001 Defense Appropriations Act, signed on August 9, 2000, limited funding to two satellites. Its 7.6 GHz of "new" capacity will meet the large bandwidth demands from government, energy and carrier-grade telecommunications markets in these growth regions. One expert said the coverage maps often touted by these large providers in their advertising are a joke at best. In early 2001, a satellite communications industry team led by Boeing Satellite Systems was selected to develop the Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) system as successors to the DSCS-3 series of communications satellites. Large swatches of America have little or no coverage. Three satellites operating in X- and Ka-band can be controlled and tracked by a global satellite configuration and control element (GSCCE), using a telemetry tracking and command links (TT&C) system. directed the acquisition of two additional WGS satellites. Both the X- and Ka-bands are interconnected through a digital channeliser and provide better connectivity in WGS. @media only screen and (min-device-width : 320px) and (max-device-width : 480px) { WGS-1 with its 2.4 Gbit/s wideband capacity, provided greater capability and bandwidth than all the DSCS satellites combined.[6]. Find a coordinate system and get position on a map. The Air Force is acquiring the satellite segment under the Federal Acquisition Red dots are reference stations used within the current network. Payload commanding and network control are managed by the armys 53rd Signal Battalion at Peterson AFB, Colorado, with subordinate elements at seven locations. After the launch, the military designated the WGS-1 as USA-195, which entered service in April 2008. [9], The launch of the second satellite, WGS-2 (USA-204), was also conducted by ULA, on 4 April 2009 at 01:31:00 UTC, using an Atlas V 421 launch vehicle. These characteristics provide a quantum leap in communications capacity, connectivity and flexibility for U.S. military forces and. These satellites have a much smaller coverage fraction f than does GPS, typically limited by a sensor's field of view. The primary contractor for the satellites themselves is Boeing Satellite Development Center, which is building them around the Boeing 702HP satellite bus. Block I contains WGS-1, WGS-2 and WGS-3 satellites, while block II satellites include WGS-4, WGS-5 and WGS-6. The versatile reachback capability offered by the STAR-T/WGS combination strongly supports force-projection operations emphasized in both the Army's transformation strategy and Joint Vision 2020. Boeing will build the WGS-11+ satellite at its facility in El Segundo, California, US. One major upgrade provided by WGS is X-Ka-Band inter-connectivity delivered by a digital channelizer which divides the uplink bandwidth into independently routable 2.6MHz subchannels which can be converted from Ka-to-X-Band and vice versa. Originally five satellites were planned. (Current as of Feb 2023), An official website of the United States government, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil. This high-capacity satellite communications system is intended to support the warfighter with newer and far greater capabilities than provided by current systems. 1 priority in 2022, with proliferated constellations of satellites a focus of this program to ensure systems remain operable even if some elements are lost. Users of WGS include the U.S., Canada and Australia. The Worldwide Reference System (WRS) is a global notation system for Landsat data. The satellite was partially-funded by allied nations, including Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, New Zealand and the United States, for military access to the entire WGS constellation.[18]. Tactical forces rely on WGS to provide high-capacity connectivity to the Defense Information Systems Network (DISN). Latitude: The space segment refers to satellites in orbit; WGS-1 was launched into orbit on 10 October 2007 on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V launch vehicle. The program has been delayed to a first launch in 2007. Even though Bing Maps uses a spherical projection, it's important to convert all geographic coordinates into a common datum, and WGS 84 was chosen to be that datum. The WGS constellation provides fast broadband communications for the US military and allies. HX System (for mobiles and airborne/maritime communications) of Hughes Network Systems was granted Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) certification by the US Strategic Command in November 2010. To take advantage of WGS' increased capabilities, STAR-T was upgraded by adding a fourth band (Ka), making it a quad-band terminal. Subsequently, the 3 hours 6 hours 12 hours 24 hours. In return, the Australian Defence Ministry was given access to the data sent by the sixth satellite, which was developed to increase the bandwidth capacity of US forces. [1] The system is composed of the Space Segment satellites, the Terminal Segment users and the Control Segment operators.[2]. . Other improvements involve uniquely shaping the terrestrial footprint of the beams for smaller footprints that are less susceptible to jamming. There was a continuing need for these users to access the Gapfiller satellites and the two or more DSCS III SLEPs to provide worldwide coverage. WGS was developed to replace the legacy 14-satellite US Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) constellation, launched from 1982 to 2003. Get your daily fix of Air Force news delivered right to your inbox every day. Boeing's ground products provide secure, low risk, resilient, modern, cloud-based systems developed around containerized software and open standards. The engine is 0.55 meters long and 0.28 meters in diameter with an unfueled mass of 3.63 kilograms. WGS systems comprise three main segments, which are space, terminal and control. Last updated: 03 Mar 2023, 19:56 UTC The satellite operators in charge of commanding and monitoring the satellite's bus and payload systems as well as managing the network operating over the satellite are the control segment. Boeings team of contractors includes Harris Corporation, ITT Industries, Logicon and SAIC. GMT, Light The satellite operates in the Indian Ocean region and provides high-capacity communication links to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the WGS Program did not go forward, DoD satellite communication capabilities would be at risk and would not be adequate to meet DoD's future and increasing communication requirements. It is positioned over the Eastern Atlantic at an orbital slot of 12> West longitude to operate in the Atlantic region. It is available in different medium models: medium+ (4,2), medium+ (5,2), medium+ (5,4) and heavy. WGS-1 lifted off on an Atlas V rocket in October 2007 followed by the other two in 2009, lifted by Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. WGS-11+ is expected to include advanced digital payload and operational capabilities that improve on those of its predecessors. WGS is designed to enhance and augment heritage communications from the DSCS-3 satellites, delivering Super High Frequency (SHF) wideband communications, and Ka-band Global Broadcast Service (GBS). The first three WGS satellites form Block I of the space segment. We use own cookies to provide you the best experience on our website as well as third party cookies that may track your use of Satbeams and show you relevant advertising. The combination of the Wideband Gapfiller Satellites, DSCS satellites, GBS payloads, wideband payload and platform control assets, and earth terminals operating with them has been referred to as the Interim Wideband System (IWS). It was launched on a Delta IV Medium+ (5,4) launch vehicle. WGS hosts a powerful communications payload for secure and fault-proof communications. The WGS satellite delivers 19 independent coverage areas divided in eight steerable/shapeable X-Band beams delivered by separate transmit and receive arrays, ten steerable Ka-Band beams provided by ten independently steerable dish antennas and one X-Band Earth Coverage beam. This includes eight steerable/shapeable X-band beams formed by separate transmit and receive phased arrays; 10 steerable Ka-band beams served by independently steerable, diplexed gimbaled dish antennas, including three with selectable polarization; and one X-band Earth coverage beam. Two of the four thrusters are used as primary units at any given time and stationkeeping in Geostationary Orbit will require four burns for a total of about 30 minutes per day to maintain the satellite within a 0.01 degree stationkeeping zone which allows many satellites to be collocated in a single orbital slot. Website designed by The WGS-3 satellite was delivered to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on 28 September 2009 and successfully launched in December 2009 on a ULA Delta IV vehicle from Space Launch Complex 41. Address: 12219 MacDonald Dr, Ojai, CA 93023 Use Our Contact Form; Office: + 1-805-649-1384 Fax: + 1-805-500-4328 WGS-9, set for liftoff in March 2017, represents the international contribution to the program with funding for the satellite provided by Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and New Zealand in exchange for access to bandwidth from the entire global constellation. Atlas V is equipped with 4m-diameter payload fairing, two solid rocket motors and a single-engine Centaur upper stage, attached to a single common core booster (CCB) powered by an RD-180 engine. So far there are 10 WGS satellites - launched from 2007 to 2019 - with the US military boasting in 2007 that the new WGS satellite would deliver 10 times the bandwidth of the entire DSCS . One of the emerging applications is SATCOM-ON-The-Move which is now being extensively used on the military tactical vehicles for Blue Force Tracking and C3 missions. WGS was initiated to deliver newer and greater capabilities to the warfighter by deploying a constellation of high-throughput satellites to Geostationary Orbit. The next three, WGS satellites 4, 5, and 6, make up Block II. Boeing received a $338.7m contract modification to build WGS-10 in July 2012. The orbit data is extracted from the following two-line orbital elements, 1 39222U 13041A 23053.33868934 .00000076 00000-0 00000-0 0 9997 2 39222 0.0131 103.0841 0000182 169.9453 225.6390 1.00270828 33911. Due to the early loss of a MILSTAR satellite, DOD committed to the purchase of 4 AEHF satellites plus one spare. WGS satellites are a follow-on to the current Defense Satellite Communications System satellites, but they offer a tenfold capability improvement in available bandwidth. WGS systems feature digitally channelised transponder satellites that provide communication capacity, connectivity and flexibility to the US military forces. The Program Office plan for WGS satellite launch is to integrate them on both Delta and Atlas Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs). The narrower spot beams on WGS-11+ are designed to deliver a stronger, more reliable connection, said vice president of Boeing Government Satellite Systems Troy Dawson in the Boeing release. With advanced phased-array design and anti-jam technology, Boeing satellites grant the warfighter and government decision-makers unconstrained access and connectivity in a contested environment. Users of the WGS system include the Australian Defence Force and the US Army ground mobile terminals, the US Navy ships and submarines, and national command authorities for the nuclear forces, in addition to various national security/allied national forces. WGS - Transformational Wideband Communication Capabilities for the Warfighter, US Air Force (USAF) US Space Force (USSF), Cross-band (X-band, Global Broadcast, 2-way Ka-band) payload.