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Air Force’s second Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite, AEHF-2, arrived at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., from Lockheed Martin’s assembly facility in California, announced Air Force space officials Thursday. Technicians will now prepare the satellite for its scheduled launch into orbit in late April aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, they said. AEHF-2 arrived at Cape Canaveral on Feb. 13 via a C-5 transport aircraft. Once on orbit, it will join AEHF-1, which reached space in August 2010, but didn’t arrive at its intended operational perch until last October due to an anomaly with its onboard propulsion. AEHF satellites are designed to provide survivable and secure global communications to the US military. They will replace the constellation of Milstar satellites currently serving in this role.
Raytheon, a division of defense giant RTX, recently announced a multiyear deal with the Pentagon to increase annual production of the Air Force’s primary dogfighting missile by more than 50 percent from two years ago.
