General Dynamics to be prime contractor for world's fastest commercial satellite transmission system

SpaceData has placed an initial order for three SeismicStar shipboard terminals and associated services valued at approximately $5 million. Orders placed over the four-year period of the contract could exceed $100 million.

The first SpaceData SeismicStar system is scheduled for deployment on a seismic exploration vessel in April 2000.

General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunication Systems will procure, integrate, assemble, test, install, and remotely operate the SeismicStar terminals on the exploration vessels. General Dynamics will also be responsible for procuring and operating the SeismicStar network's terrestrial earth stations and high-speed fiber connectivity to terrestrial supercomputers for seismic exploration data processing. The SpaceData Control Center (Las Cruces, NM), which is owned and operated by General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunication Systems, will provide operational control and maintenance for the entire end-to-end worldwide SeismicStar system.

SpaceData's SeismicStar terminals will be installed on ocean-going seismic exploration vessels and will automatically transfer the daily seismic data files by a high-speed 'broadband-on-command' service through a highly unique series of geostationary satellites to ground station facilities in the United States and then by fiber to customer's supercomputers for data processing. Today these seismic vessels gather and store very large data files on tape on a daily basis. These tapes are physically transferred on the occasions when supply vessels or helicopters can reach the vessels and remove the data tapes for later shipment or hand-carry to terrestrial sites for eventual processing and evaluation.

This complete end-to-end SeismicStar system is currently designed to deliver the daily high-speed data transmission of very large data files between remote offshore marine seismic exploration vessels and land-based supercomputers allowing faster turnaround of information.