
Northrop Grumman [NOC] said on Nov. 7 that it has finished thermal vacuum tests on the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM)--two satellites for broadband communications over the North Pole for the U.S. Space Force and the state-owned Space Norway AS. Each satellite has the Enhanced Polar System-Recapitalization (EPS-R) payload for the U.S. Space Force, a Ka-band payload for Viasat [VSAT] and an X-band payload for the Norwegian Ministry of Defense. The Ka-band payload was originally under Inmarsat, but Viasat bought…