ADVERTISEMENT

Ready to Go

Aug. 13, 2010

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org

AEHF-1, the Air Force’s first advanced extremely high frequency satellite, is ready to go for Saturday’s scheduled launch into orbit, Lockheed Martin announced Thursday. The satellite is at the launch pad at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., sitting atop the Atlas V rocket that will carry it into space. “The team has executed a smooth and efficient transition to the launch pad and we look forward to achieving mission success for our customer,” said Mike Davis, Lockheed’s AEHF vice president. The AEHF is the new military communications satellite design that will replace the Milstar satellites. It will provide survivable and protected communications at 10 times the capacity of the latest Milstar variant. The Air Force has bought four AEHF satellites so far and would like to start advanced procurement of AEHF-5 in Fiscal 2011. Lockheed is the AEHF prime contractor and supplies the Atlas V as part of the United Launch Alliance.

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org

Trending Stories

Hegseth Directs Air Force to Establish New Guard Special Tactics Squadron

Air Force Considering Air-to-Air Role for Bombers amid Fighter Procurement Constraints

Pentagon Bets Big on Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets

AFOSI Seeks Enlisted Airmen to Train as Special Agents

Related

AFOSI Seeks Enlisted Airmen to Train as Special Agents

Oct. 23, 2026
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is looking for a few good Airmen to swap jobs and become special agents. No, they won’t get the 007 James Bond code—but they could learn to conduct counterintelligence and investigate procurement fraud and major crimes.

DUNE Project Aims to Unite Legacy and Cloud Tools in Air Ops Centers

Oct. 23, 2026
After decades of building isolated, vendor-locked systems to run the Air Operations Centers that serve as the Air Force’s “combat brains,” the program office tasked with creating the next-generation AOC is working to fold those systems into a new cloud-based system.

Pentagon Bets Big on Drone-Killing APKWS Laser-Guided Rockets

Oct. 22, 2026
The Pentagon has concluded a new agreement to buy laser-guidance kits that turn rockets into drone-killing weapons. BAE Systems and the Defense Department announced a framework deal of up to seven years for 25,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System guidance kits annually for the U.S. military.

NORTHCOM Wraps Radar Test to Boost Arctic Early Warning

Oct. 22, 2026
U.S. Northern Command and multiple research organizations just wrapped up a joint, three-year experiment to test new radar technology that could enable the Northern Warning System to detect incoming threats at longer ranges across Alaska and northern Canada.

Pentagon, Lockheed Agree on 10-Year Framework for Buying F-35s

Oct. 22, 2026
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin on Oct. 22 announced a framework agreement to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the next 10 years. But the deal, touted by the Pentagon as “landmark” and a first of its kind, depends on Congress granting the military authority to enter into such a…

Michael Wynne, SECAF 21, Dead at 82 

Oct. 22, 2026
Michael Wynne, the 21st Secretary of the Air Force died Oct. 17. He was 82 years old. Wynne was Secretary from 2005 to 2008, a stretch of time when the U.S. military was struggling to quell insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Army was struggling to simultaneously man occupation…