The Advanced Extremely High Frequency
(Advanced EHF) National Team of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, TRW Space &
Electronics and Boeing Satellite Systems has successfully completed the
system Preliminary Design Review (PDR) with its customer, the MILSATCOM
Joint Program Office, U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The
PDR demonstrated that the Advanced EHF design meets or exceeds the
customer’s requirements for the next generation highly secure military
satellite system, which will employ the world’s most complex and
sophisticated communication satellites.

“The thoroughness of the revamped system design and system level
requirements were clear indicators of the close coupling between the
government and National Team members,” said Lt. Col. Steven Lauder, Advanced
EHF program manager for the Joint Program Office. “The joint warfighters
will be able to expect vast improvement in capabilities from the Advance EHF
system. I am impressed by the progress of the National Team and I
congratulate them for a job well done!”

More than 400 people from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Department of Defense
agencies, as well as industry teammates TRW and Boeing and other system
engineering and technical assistance support contractors, participated in
the three-day review held recently at Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale facility.
The PDR validated that the Advanced EHF architecture supports the Air Force
concept of operations and provides backward compatibility with Milstar
ground and space assets.

The review of the system verified that the design would satisfy global and
worldwide continuous coverage at ten times the capacity of the heritage
Milstar system. It will provide electronic jamming protection for military
forces and the ability to support joint communications among all military
EHF terminals.

“We are extremely pleased to have successfully completed this significant
milestone in the Advanced EHF program,” said Manny Dimiceli, Lockheed
Martin’s Advanced EHF program manager. “Working hand-in-hand with our Air
Force customer, the PDR team has brought together extensive experience,
talent, and determination to develop what will be the most complex,
sophisticated military communications satellite system ever produced.”

Now that the system PDR has been successfully completed, the team has
quickly turned its focus to the execution of the ground and satellite
segment PDRs, which will be conducted through mid-September. As the design
matures, the team will conduct additional lower level element and component
reviews, before the system level critical design review in July 2003, prior
to production start.

“There are tough challenges ahead of us as we aim for near-term production
approval for the Advanced EHF satellite and ground segment,” added Lt. Col.
Lauder. “We’re all looking forward to getting our current acquisition
challenges behind us and focusing on ‘putting rubber on the ramp’ with
Advanced EHF.”

Last year, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, TRW Space and Electronics, and
Boeing Satellite Systems formed a National Team to develop the Advanced EHF
system, the follow-on to the DoD’s Milstar highly secure communication
satellite program. The same team of contractors has successfully teamed on
the Milstar Program, which currently has a three-satellite constellation in
orbit. The last Milstar satellite is planned for launch in 2002.

The fully operational Advanced EHF constellation will consist of four
cross-linked satellites providing Earth coverage. These satellites will
provide secure data throughput capability and coverage flexibility to
regional and global military operations and will also be backward compatible
with the Milstar system. The first of the four satellites is scheduled for
launch in December 2005.

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NOTE TO EDITORS: Low- and high-resolution JPEG image files of the Advanced
EHF system are available at the following URL:

http://lmms.external.lmco.com/photos/military_space/advanced_ehf/advanced_ehf.html