Boeing Completes Critical Wideband Global SatCom Satellite Tests

Boeing Co. has completed end-to-end testing of the Wideband Global SatCom (WGS) payload command and control system in preparation for the launch of the first WGS satellite this summer, Boeing announced June 5.

During the tests, the newly installed WGS ground station equipment at the Camp Roberts Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Center in Paso Robles, Calif., communicated with a WGS satellite located at Boeing’s El Segundo, Calif., satellite factory, routing operational commands through the Satellite Operations Center at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., and a U.S. Air Force satellite control network connection at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The tests were designed to ensure the system, designed by Boeing and ITT Corp., can communicate with a WGS satellite.

Boeing is under U.S. Air Force contract to build three WGS Block 1 and two WGS Block 2 satellites, each of them a Boeing 702 model. The first Block 2 satellite is expected to launch in early 2011.