The Allied Defense Group Inc. said Aug. 19 MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) awarded Allied’s Seaspace subsidiary an antenna order valued at $800,000 with $200,000 in options.

The Ka-band ground station tracking antenna will support the technical demonstration of MDA’s commercial space-based digital courier service, or Cascade. Cascade is designed to provide large-scale data transfer service to remote commercial, civil and military clients anywhere in the world. It will support the transfer of digital files ranging in size from 50 to 500 gigabytes.

Under the options, MDA could add multiple land-based or shipboard antenna to work with the Cascade, Allied said.