Iridium Communications has been awarded a $8.57 million task order, under the Gateway Modernization Efforts contract, from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), to make upgrades and enhancements to the U.S. Department of Defense's dedicated Iridium gateway that will improve network effectiveness, enhance performance and enable continued preparation efforts for its next-generation, global satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT.

This milestone signifies Iridium's continued investment in enabling a global and reliable, secure network that supports mission-critical communications for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Additionally, under the fixed-price Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMSS) contract, the DoD and its partners have access to unlimited airtime service for voice, data, paging and Distributed Tactical Communications Services (DTCS).

This task order reinforces Iridium's strong and longstanding relationship with the DoD, and enables continued collaboration and modernization efforts to support warfighter communication needs now and into the future.

"Iridium is proud to work with the DoD and enable global and reliable communications for the United States warfighters and other DISA approved users," said Scott Scheimreif, executive vice president of government solutions at Iridium.

"We place significant value and take great pride in our longstanding partnership with the DoD, and look forward to continuing working together as we move towards our next-generation constellation."

Iridium NEXT, Iridium's next-generation global satellite constellation, is scheduled to begin launching in 2016 and for completion in late 2017.

The new constellation will offer greater bandwidth and data speeds, dramatically enhancing Iridium's ability to meet the rapidly-expanding demand for truly global mobile communications on land, at sea and in the skies.