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Alabama company awarded $522M Army contract for inflatable antennas

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The Associated Press

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Dominic Perry, right, of Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Infantry Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, adjusts a GATR 2.4 meter antenna as his team guides him while setting up a tactical operations center during exercise Swift Response 15 at the U.S. Army’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Aug. 27, 2015. The purpose of the exercise is to conduct joint and combined training events in order to evaluate brigade and battalion level execution of strategic out-load in conjunction with allied partner nations through an intermediate staging base. Swift Response 15 is the U.S. Army’s largest combined airborne training event in Europe since the end of the Cold War. More than 4,800 service members from 11 NATO nations- including Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States- will take part in the exercise on training areas in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, and Romania, Aug. 17- Sept. 13, 2015. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Carol A. Lehman/Released)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — An Alabama company has a five-year, $522 million extension to an Army contract for inflatable satellite antenna systems.

GATR Technologies Inc. of Huntsville first won the contract in 2013.

It said in early 2014 that the contract made the antennas more broadly available to the armed services, which already were using them in special operations units.

GATR’s ground-mounted antennas look like giant beach balls with tie-downs to point them in the right direction.

The antenna inside is reflective fabric. Fans keep the air pressure in the top half slightly higher than in the bottom half, pushing the fabric down into the right shape.

The extension brings the contract’s total maximum value to more than $960 million.

It was announced Friday in the Pentagon’s daily list of military contracts.

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The Associated Press