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The delay of the U.S. Navy’s Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite program, originally planned kick off its first satellite in late 2009, should come as no surprise to the hosted payload community. The resulting rise in unmet demand for UHF satellite communications due to the proliferation of UAVs was predicted months ago. Government Accountability Office (GAO) auditors recently wrote in a report that they were “shocked” by the original and unrealistic military MUOS schedule, as well as by the design flaws that caused its delays. Futron Analyst Jay Gullish said that, “in the rest of the world, the client would not be paying for it until it was up there and working.”
What is shocking, however, is the language that was included in a Senate Armed Services Committee report accompanying the 2012 Defense Authorization Act, which called on the Navy to explore hosted payloads options to expand UHF capacity. The committee even offered a due date in March! The Navy already plans to share UHF capacity over the Indian Ocean region on a Australian Defense Force hosted payload that will be launched on Intelsat General’s IS-22 satellite in March. Could it be true? Has the government started to realize how much longer it takes to develop satellites and satellite payloads than the private sector?
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