Kongsberg Norspace wins orders for deliveries to Inmarsat 6

Kongsberg Norspace wins order with Airbus Defence and Space for state-of-the-art converters for two Inmarsat-6 satellites worth up to 300 MNOK

Kongsberg Norspace AS (KONGSBERG) has won a contract with Airbus Defence and Space for providing highly integrated L-band Pre and Post processors for the first two Inmarsat-6 satellites. The contract covers development and delivery of flight hardware with a value of 250 - 300 million NOK. The development is supported by ESA through the ARTES 3-4 program.

This contract comes six months after Inmarsat awarded Airbus Defence and Space a contract to build the first two mobile communications satellites for Inmarsat’s sixth-generation fleet. The spacecraft contain the Airbus Defence and Space developed new generation modular digital processor and will provide full routing flexibility over up to 8000 channels and dynamic power allocation to over 200 spot beams in L-band, in addition to a Ka-band co-payload. The SAW-based (Surface Acoustic Wave filters) L-band processors from KONGSBERG will provide the phase coherent down and up-conversion from L-band to the digital processor.

These new satellites will enhance the L-band services offered through Inmarsat’s fourth generation (Inmarsat-4) fleet, where KONGSBERG also provided the pre/post processors. The KONGSBERG deliveries for Inmarsat-6 encompass the best of technologies within filtering, frequency generation, amplification, conversion and switching.

“We are proud of the trust Airbus Defence and Space and Inmarsat have placed in us by awarding this order. Airbus Defence and Space has been an important customer for many years and this contract consolidates our leading position in the mobile GEO satellite market, providing a foundation for growth and further development”, says Ellen D. Tuset, President Kongsberg Norspace. For further information: Ellen Dahler Tuset, President Kongsberg Norspace, mobile +47 9758 4250 Christian Hauglie-Hanssen, Executive Vice President Kongsberg Defence Systems