Boeing previously built the three satellites in the TDRS H, I, and J series (shown here) for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The next-generation series of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) provides NASA with crucial crosslink communications capability between Earth-orbiting spacecraft and control and data processing facilities on the ground.

NASA has returned to Boeing to build its next-generation series of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).

TDRS M will address the growing need for satellites to serve as NASA’s means of continuous, high-data-rate communication with the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope and dozens of unmanned scientific satellites in low Earth orbit.