UFO
UHF Follow On

Hughes Space and Communications will build, launch, test and deliver on-orbit 10 UFO satellites under this $1.8-billion contract with the US Navy. UFO-1 was launched into a useless orbit by a faulty Atlas on March 25, 1993. UFO-4 cost roughly $188M. These spacecraft will replace the aging Leasat and Fltsatcom spacecraft in providing secure global communications for U.S. Naval forces.

Spacecraft
The UFO series was the first to use the HS-601 spacecraft bus design. The dual solar arrays provide nearly 2700 watts.

Payload
UFO-4 is the first in the series to carry an EHF package (roughly 400 lbm and provides uplink at 44 GHz and downlinks at 20 GHz on 11 channels through an Earth coverage antenna and a 5 deg steerable spot beam antenna). The payload also includes 11 solid-state UHF amplifiers covering 555 kHz UHF bandwidth on 21 5-kHz-bandwidth channels, seven 25-kHz relay channels and one fleet broadcast channel with a 25 kHz bandwidth.

Country of Origin	United States
Customer/User	US Navy
Manufacturer(s)	Hughes
Orbit	Geosynchronous UFO4: 177 deg W.
Design Life	10 years minimum

Launch Facts

Name	Int'l Desig.	Date	Site	Vehicle	Orbit	Mass(kg)
Notes
UFO 1	1993-015A	3/25/93	ESMC	Atlas 1	LEO	2866
US Navy communications; Ultra High Frequency Follow On; unusable orbit
UFO 2	1993-056A	9/3/93	ESMC	Atlas 1	GEO	2844
US Navy communications
UFO 3	1994-035A	6/24/94	ESMC	Atlas 1	GEO	2847
US Navy communications
UFO 4	1995-003A	1/29/95	ESMC	Atlas 2	GEO	3023
UHF Follow-On #4; US Navy communications
UFO 5 (USA 111)	1995-027A	5/31/95	ESMC	Atlas 2	GEO	3015
UHF Follow-On #5; US Navy communications
UFO 6 (USA 114)	1995-057A	10/22/95	ESMC	Atlas 2	GEO	3015
UHF Follow-On #5; US Navy communications; 105 deg W