The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and L3Harris have entered a formal agreement with the goal of improving technology that will enable NOAA to handle an increase of satellite data expected during the next decade, the agency announced March 6.
Under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), the Multi-Band Multi-Mission Digital Beamforming (DBF) Phased Array Antenna System (DPAAS) will benefit both NOAA and L3Harris.
Specifically, NOAA will gain knowledge in the areas of architecture, implementation, integration and operation of a DPAAS, while L3Harris will benefit through an expanded understanding of DPAAS operational mission applications. In addition, L3Harris would perform DPAAS development and evaluation and NOAA would provide access, facilities, infrastructure, power and system.
Also, the CRADA will:
- Support multiple simultaneous satellite contacts, both uplinks and downlinks, from a single antenna ground asset
- Support satellites with differing orbital planes, technical configurations and data rates
- Adapt and scale to encompass coverage of new satellite missions
- Provide antenna, radio processing and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) detection capabilities from a single unified platform
“The outcome from research partnerships like these will help NOAA do its job in ways that are better, smarter and faster for the key users, who depend on our data,” said Stephen Volz, Ph.D, director of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service.
NOAA regularly partners with private sector companies through CRADAs to conduct research and development work that is mutually beneficial and helps to accomplish NOAA’s mission.
Source: NOAA
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