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NOAA 02-094 CONTACT: Patricia Viets, NOAA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (301) 457-5005 July 25, 2002
TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES A $3.7 million, three-year contract to improve telecommunications services has been awarded to Americom Government Services of Princeton, N.J., the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today. The contract, for delivery of "turn-key" satellite communications services to support polar, and eventually geostationary spacecraft, has a potential value of $17.5 million over ten years. The company will help relay data and commands from NOAA's Command and Data Acquisition Stations in Fairbanks, Alaska; Wallops, Va.; and several U.S. Air Force Satellite Control Network sites, to Suitland, Md., and civilian and military users across the United States. The data being routed are from NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites and the Defense Department's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), but NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program as well as international meteorological programs will be supported under this contract. Since May 1998 NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, Integrated Program Office (IPO) has commanded satellites in the DMSP program from the Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Md. This "Operational Convergence" of NOAA's polar-orbiting environmental satellites and the Defense Department's meteorological satellites was instituted by a Presidential Decision Directive to improve savings and efficiency in NOAA's and DoD's polar satellite operations. Award of this contract by the Office of Finance and Administration/NESDIS Business Management Office continues these costs savings and efficiencies. This fixed price telecommunications contract will save the American taxpayers nearly $10 million over ten years. NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service is the nation's primary source of space-based meteorological and climate data. NOAA Satellite and Information Service operates the nation's environmental satellites, which are used for weather forecasting, climate monitoring and other environmental applications such as fire detection, ozone monitoring and sea surface temperature measurements. NOAA Satellite and Information Service also operates three data centers, which house global data bases in climatology, oceanography, solid earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, and paleoclimatology. To learn more about NOAA Satellite and Information Service, please visit http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov. 
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Last modified: Wednesday, 19-Sep-2007 13:46:56 UTC
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