NASA selects combined data services contract for polar satellites

August 15th, 2012
NASA has selected the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC) of Oslo, Norway, for combined data support services for NOAA's Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Program.

This is a firm-fixed price contract with a value of about $22 million, which includes one base year and four one-year options to extend performance.

This contract permits usage of the Svalbard Satellite Station ground station and other NSC data services resources to support the JPSS Program requirements for three missions: Global Change Observation – Water 1, Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership and JPSS-1. The contract provides satellite data acquisition and distribution services for current polar orbiting satellites. It includes mission planning and related support activities for the JPSS Program and for the JPSS-1 mission.

JPSS is a new generation of polar-orbiting satellites designed to enhance the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) efforts to forecast weather and track global climate change from space. Under the NOAA-NASA partnership, NOAA is responsible for the JPSS Program, including funding the advanced instruments, sensors and the two planned spacecraft and launch vehicles. NASA is the acquisition and system integrator for JPSS.

Provided by NASA

This Phys.org Science News Wire page contains a press release issued by an organization mentioned above and is provided to you “as is” with little or no review from Phys.Org staff.

More news stories

Congress gets mixed advice on regulating drones

(AP)—The growing use of unmanned surveillance "eyes in the sky" aircraft raises a thicket of privacy concerns, but the U.S. Congress is getting mixed advice on what, if anything, to do about it.

Makr Shakr uses three arms for drink-recipe collabs

(Phys.org) —We're told it's the wave of the future. Design, make, enjoy. Beyond home-based 3-D printers, there will be new machines and display screens and apps that will invite you to have day to day products ...

RIM unveils cheaper BlackBerry (Update 2)

Research In Motion unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets on Tuesday, and said it will offer its once-popular BlackBerry Messenger service on iPhones and devices running Google's ...

Heat-related deaths in Manhattan projected to rise

Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die. Researchers say deaths linked to warming climate may rise some 20 percent by the 2020s, ...

Kinks and curves at the nanoscale

One of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely small—one nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair—they are going ...