Friday, November 18, 2005
MUBLCOM
1999-026B
MUBLCOM (Multiple beam Beyond Line-of-sight Communications) is an experimental satellite funded by DARPA and managed by the US Army's Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) at Ft Monmouth, New Jersey. It was built by Orbital using the Microstar (Orbcomm type) bus and carries a payload testing hand-held radio satellite communications for the armed forces.
Orbit is 750 x 750 km x 98 deg. The gravity gradient stabilized craft has a mass of 48 kg and is 0.16 long x 1.0 dia. MUBLCOM stands for Multiple Beam Beyond Line-of-Sight Communications. MUBLCOM relays packet data from user terminals to a data/voice network providing secure, mobile, terrain-independent, all-weather comms. The comms payload was developed by Torrey Science Corp. (TSC). The MUBLCOM demonstration satellite was launched in 1999. Program manager is the Space and Terrestrial Comms Directorate (S&TCD;) of CECOM, the US Army Communications/Electronics Command (part of Army Materiel Command?)
MUBLCOM also carries retroreflectors designed for use with MSFC's Advanced Video Guidance Sensor used on the DART satellite. This was not made public until DART launch preps in 2004.
The satellite was retired in 2005 Sep.