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Rendering of ViaSat-3 in orbit. Photo: ViaSat-3

The first Viasat-3 satellite has begun serving its first government customer, the U.S. Marine Corps, Viasat announced Thursday. 

The Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38 (MWCS-38) and the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment are the first two military operational units using the satellite. The MWCS-38 provides expeditionary communications support to the Aviation Combat Element (ACE) inside the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). This squadron is using existing multi-mission terminals (MMT) to access VS3 F1 service. 

The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, based out of the Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, is also using VS3 F1 services to support mission and reconnaissance operation communications.

Viasat has a contract with the Marine Corps for managed satcom service that was awarded last year after a pilot program.  

This is a milestone for the ViaSat-3 F1 satellite, which suffered an anomaly after it was launched last year that cut its available capacity to around 10% of what was expected. The satellite began servicing aviation customers over North America and Hawaii in August. 

“The ViaSat-3 satellite network was designed with government missions in mind, offering greater capacity and the flexibility to dynamically shift bandwidth where it’s needed most,” commented Susan Miller, president of Viasat Government. “The use of small beams, beam shaping, encryption and ViaSat-3’s unique anti-jam capabilities are designed to provide secure and reliable connectivity to support the most critical government missions.”

Viasat reiterated in the Oct. 10 announcement that other two ViaSat-3 satellites are in late stages of production and testing.

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