North America

MTN Extends Partnership with Carnival Corporation
MTN Communications has signed a new agreement with Carnival Corporation for the provision of Internet services to customers and crew aboard several of their ships, including Princess Cruises, Cunard, and P&O Cruises in the United Kingdom.

Carnival will also be extending its existing agreement with MTN Worldwide TV for its broadcast television services, which provides television content to 50 of its ships across the globe. Carnival will continue to use MTN’s Terrestrial Broadband Services while in port in Alaskan waters.

Inmarsat Government Formalizes VAR Agreement for Global Xpress
Inmarsat Government has finalized its agreement to be a Value Added Reseller (VAR) for Inmarsat Global Xpress. As a cleared company under a proxy agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Inmarsat Government will provide assured access supported by a team of U.S. security-cleared professionals.MTN Communications has signed a new agreement with Carnival Corporation for the provision of Internet services to customers and crew aboard several of their ships, including Princess Cruises, Cunard, and P&O Cruises in the United Kingdom.

Ball Aerospace Completes Integration of WorldView 3 Spacecraft

Engineers working on the WorldView 3 satellite.
Credit: Ball Aerospace

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation has completed the integration of the imagery sensor on the WorldView 3 satellite, and is now ready for system-level performance testing. This commercial remote-sensing satellite, scheduled to launch this summer, is being built for DigitalGlobe, a global provider of high-resolution Earth imagery solutions.

Operating at an expected altitude of 617 kilometers, the WorldView 3 is the first multi-payload, super-spectral, high resolution commercial satellite for Earth observations and advanced geospatial solutions.

US Navy Accepts General Dynamics Ground Stations for MUOS

The U.S. Navy has accepted three General Dynamics C4 Systems-built ground stations for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). While General Dynamics led the development and delivery of the stations, Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the MUOS system.

Located in Hawaii, Virginia and Australia, the MUOS ground systems receive radio calls relayed through satellites from service members around the world, and also assist with the overall management of the MUOS satellites.

Boeing Receives First Signals from NASA TDRS L Satellite

TDRS L satellite. Credit: NASA

Boeing has received the first in-orbit signals from the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS L). As the fifth Boeing-built satellite to join NASA’s space communications network, the TDRS will assist in communication with orbiting spacecraft, studying the Earth’s changing climate and looking into deep space through the Hubble Space Telescope.

“This advanced satellite is an important part of NASA’s critical communications relay network and will improve capacity and enhance bandwidth at the lowest cost,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems.