Iridium Communications of McLean, Va., was awarded three contracts totaling $12.2 million from the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to upgrade a satellite communications gateway in Hawaii, according to a Nov. 11 Iridium press release.

The Pentagon’s Enhanced Mobile Satellite Service Gateway in Hawaii is a dedicated portal for uploading and downloading U.S. government voice and data traffic to and from Iridium’s constellation of low Earth orbiting communications satellites. Under the fixed-price contracts, Iridium will replace key switching systems and antenna radomes and upgrade components of the system’s Message Origination Center, the press release said.