The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has selected a Parsons Corp.-led team to provide engineering services, IT functionality and flight operations support for on-orbit operations for the Polar Operational Environmental Satellites NOAA-15, NOAA-18 and NOAA-19.
The $16 million definitive contract has a 1-year performance period and two 1-year option periods.
“In partnership with NOAA, this team will leverage our extensive portfolios of satellite operations and information technology capabilities to demonstrate successful commercialization of the polar operations mission,” said Jason Long, Parsons vice president for civil solutions.
The team includes Arctic Slope Technical Services, Inc., a subsidiary of ASRC Federal; and Kongsberg Satellite Services. ASTS operates the POES spacecraft and will continue to support operations and the implementation of cybersecurity architecture. KSAT will provide ground antenna support with its KSATlite service.
“We look forward to further evolving the partnership between government and commercial industry in the space domain to affordably extend the life of these valuable environmental monitoring systems,” Long said.
NOAA’s three POES will be one of the first U.S. government satellites transitioned from a legacy government-owned ground control system to a hybrid cloud-based commercial operation. Over the next six months, the team will move the control of the POES to commercial ground control systems deployed on a hybrid cloud architecture using Parsons’ commercial space software applications.