RICHMOND, BC — MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has signed a contract worth more than $100 million with Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd.

The deal is for a communications payload system for the AMOS-6 satellite to be launched in 2015.

Israel Aerospace Industries, an aerospace and defence contractor, designs, manufactures and operates the AMOS communications satellites series.

MDA also announced a multi-million dollar contract with DigitalGlobe Inc. for a system that will allow two of the US air forces mobile ground systems to receive and process imagery from WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites.

The deal builds on an agreement in October to bring the number of US air force systems with the capability to four.

MDA, best-known as the maker of the robotic arms used on the International Space Station and the now-retired US space shuttles, supplies technology to a variety of businesses that use satellites to collection information from space.

© 2012 The Canadian Press