New ‘Star Wars’ missile defense and satellite communications center finished in Wahiawa

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$25M Navy satellite center passes muster in Wahiawa

By Star-Advertiser staff

POSTED: 09:44 p.m. HST, Aug 21, 2010

The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii said it completed final building inspections for a $25.4 million satellite communications center at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam’s Wahiawa Annex.

The Army’s 53rd Signal Battalion will use the new 28,244-square-foot Wideband Satellite Communication Operations Center.

Keys to the building were “unofficially” turned over to senior members of the Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command on June 25, the Navy said.

“This new state-of-the-art building will enable the company’s world-class satellite communications support to the warfighter” said Capt. Daniel Zisa, commander of D Company, 53rd Signal Battalion.

The Navy awarded the firm-fixed price design-bid-build contract to Watts Constructors LLC of Honolulu in December 2008.

The facility was required to incorporate environmentally sustainable elements and is a prototype for other satellite operations at locations including Fort Detrick, Md.; Fort Meade, Md.; and Landstuhl Heliport, Germany, the Navy said.

The satellite communications center is the second of three major communications facilities the Navy is developing at the Wahiawa Annex. The others are Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific’s Daniel R. Healy Communications Center, named after a Pearl Harbor-based SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, and the Hawaii Regional Security Operations Center.