Orbit wins naval contract for maritime SATCOM terminals

Global provider Orbit Communications Systems has been awarded a contract for the delivery of maritime satellite communications (SATCOM) terminals.

The contract was awarded by an undisclosed Asian navy. The announcement was made at the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, DC, US.

Under the $2.7m contract, Orbit will provide OceanTRx 4 and OceanTRx 7 maritime SATCOM terminals, as well as related spare parts.

With this order, the OceanTRx product line has now been selected by ten navies. According to the company, the Asian navy order is the fourth to be placed in the last nine months.

Orbit CEO Dany Eshchar said: “The proven performance and reliability of OceanTRx, along with a range of antenna sizes and configurations, have been key differentiators in all of our recent navy orders.

“In this case the navy selected different antenna sizes to meet mission requirements of across a wide range of vessels, with the added benefit of common operations and shared spare parts.”

Introduced in 2015, the OceanTRx product line includes reliable and stabilised SATCOM platforms for maritime operations. The dual-band terminals feature superior radio frequency and tracking performance, improving the mission efficiency, according to the company.

The terminals can be installed on vessels in one day and require few updates and maintenance.

OceanTRx 4 is a light-weight terminal with a 1.15m antenna, while OceanTRx 7 has a 2.2m antenna.

The SATCOM terminals can be configured for frequency bands such as C, X, Ku, Ka and Ka-wideband.

In June 2018, Orbit secured an order to supply its maritime SATCOM systems to a major Asian navy.