LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, El Segundo, Calif. — The U.S. Air Force successfully launched the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency spacecraft at 2:42 p.m. EDT, May 4 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The satellite was carried aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle.
With successful satellite separation from the launch vehicle approximately 51 minutes after liftoff, AEHF-2 will undergo approximately 110 days of orbit-raising operations followed by approximately 120 days of on-orbit testing. After these critical events, AEHF-2 will be ready to transfer to the 14th Air Force for Satellite Control Authority. “We are proud of our entire launch team.” said Col. Michael Sarchet, AEHF Government Program Manager. “Each AEHF spacecraft will provide warfighters’ much improved protected communications capabilities.”
AEHF is a joint service satellite communications system that will provide survivable, global, secure, protected, and jam-resistant communications for high-priority military ground, sea and air assets. The AEHF system is the follow-on to the Milstar system, augmenting, improving and expanding the Department of Defense’s MILSATCOM architecture.
AEHF-2 was procured from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company by the MILSATCOM Systems Directorate, part of the Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center. The MILSATCOM Systems Directorate plans, acquires and sustains space-based global communications in support of the president, secretary of defense and combat forces. The MILSATCOM enterprise consists of satellites, terminals and control stations and provides communications for more than 16,000 air, land and sea platforms.
