An industry team led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman has successfully demonstrated their Low Cost Terminal with an orbiting communications satellite.

The LCT accessed an Advanced Extremely High Frequency joint military satellite already in orbit, the companies announced on Thursday.

AEHF is a network of six satellites used for highly secure worldwide communications.

"LCT achieves low cost by leveraging existing designs, technology, and investments, while adopting a commercial procurement and production model," said Northrop Grumman's vice president of communications Cyrus Dinalia.

"It was designed for easy operation and low maintenance and training costs to make it truly affordable for tactical users needing highly protected anti-jam, low probability of detection communications."

The test is the first time a completely industry-funded and designed terminal has been allowed to access the AEHF network.

The LCT is being designed and tested as three different variants with airborne, ground and portable models. The industry team says the terminals are smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier to use and deploy than existing models. The team is currently looking to receive government approval and certification for the systems pending full production.

AEHF is designed for highly secured communications between the National Security Council, combat commands and tactical units. It can be used for multiple forms of data transmission ranging from nuclear command and control codes or near-live video streams. It is the follow-on system to the 1990s-era Milstar satellite network.

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