Raytheon has successfully tested with the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite that will provide secure communications for the U.S. military and international partners.

Raytheon's U.S. Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT) is the second operationally fielded terminal to interoperate with an on-orbit AEHF satellite after the recent success of the company's U.S. Army Secure Mobile Anti-jam Reliable Tactical Terminal (SMART-T).

The first AEHF satellite, launched in August 2010, recently began an extensive set of operational tests.

NMT demonstrated interoperable communications using the AEHF satellite's eXtended Data Rate (XDR) waveform, moving data more than five times faster than previous EHF systems.

In addition, it demonstrated backward compatibility to low and medium data rate operation supported by earlier EHF satellites on the new AEHF satellite.

NMT is in production and fielded, and like the Army's SMART-T system, ready to support U.S. armed services with the latest protected satellite communication waveform requirements when testing is complete.

"This increased capability will give the Navy more mission flexibility and significantly increased capacity to provide protected voice, data and video communications supporting strategic and tactical missions," said Scott Whatmough, vice president of Raytheon Network Centric Systems' Integrated Communication Systems business.

"Our continued success in this on-orbit testing of AEHF demonstrates our ability to deliver complex EHF and AEHF terminals to the Army, Navy and Air Force.

"They are ready for immediate deployment in support of our operational forces upon transfer of satellite command authority from the Space and Missile Systems Center to the 14th Air Force in early 2012," he added.

Raytheon will field 308 AEHF NMT terminals to the U.S. armed services.

The NMT system incorporates Raytheon's new XDR waveform hardware and software, a complex technological breakthrough in protected communications. XDR provides users with increased bandwidth and speed, enabling strategic and tactical military communications.