ARSAT, the national Argentinian telecommunications company, recently awarded Communications & Power Industries (CPI) an approximately US$20 million three-year contract to provide large, Ka-band telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) and gateway systems to support the ARSAT-SG1 satellite.
CPI, a global manufacturer of electronic components and subsystems, will provide two 13.2 metre TT&C antennas and six 6.3 metre gateway earth station antennas, each fully integrated with CPI satellite communications amplifiers, to be installed at several sites in Argentina.
ARSAT-SG1, which is planned for launch in 2025, will be ARSAT’s first high-performance satellite with high-throughput satellite (HTS) technology, as well as its first satellite operating in the Ka-band frequency. It is intended to provide reliable, high-quality satellite broadband to more than 200,000 households in low-density, rural areas of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay, where the deployment of terrestrial communications infrastructure is insufficient to support increasing demand.
ARSAT is the national telecommunications company created by the Argentine state on May 22, 2006. It provides wholesale connectivity to bridge the digital divide between small towns and large cities.
“CPI supports ARSAT’s goal of providing Argentinians with equal access to telecommunications services, bridging the digital divide between rural and urban areas. To help accomplish this, we worked closely with ARSAT to ensure that we developed an integrated solution that fully met the needs of the SG1 GSKa (ground station Ka) programme. This included developing new features for our 6.3 metre antenna,” says Mike DiBiase, President of CPI’s Antenna & Power Technologies business.
Work on the three-year contract will be completed at CPI facilities in the United States and Canada.
This is the latest in a number of contracts announced this year by ARSAT, including Ka-band antennas from MDA and an IoT solution from ST Engineering iDirect.
