Iridium awarded gateway support and maintenance contract by the U.S. Department of Defense

MCLEAN, VA. –Iridium Communications Inc. of McLean, Va. announced recently that it has been awarded a new contract by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to continue supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Enhanced Mobile Satellite Service (EMSS) gateway. The contract is valued at $54 million over 4.5 years.

Dedicated for use by the U.S. DoD, their Iridium gateway serves as the uplink and downlink point for the DoD’s EMSS communications capabilities through the Iridium network. This includes the enhanced capabilities made possible by Iridium’s upgraded satellite constellation, which was formally completed and declared fully operational in February of this year.

The previous iteration of the GMSS contract was awarded in October of 2013 for a five-year term with a six-month extension option. The subscribers operating under the Iridium EMSS program run by DISA have more than doubled over the five-year period between 2013 and 2018 to 113,000.

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