The Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) component and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are looking for public input on ground station components for the agencies’ Landsat Next project.
Landset Next is envisioned as a constellation of three space-based observatories that will monitor dynamic land and water surfaces including vegetation, wildfire burns, reservoirs and waterways, coastal and wetland regions, glaciers, and more.
In a Jan. 18 request for information, the agencies said they are looking for “ground station as a service” (GSaaS) capabilities.
“NASA and USGS seek information from various GSaaS organizations to determine the feasibility of expanding today’s architecture to address the substantial increase in contact time and data transmission needs to support the Landsat Next constellation,” the RFI states.
The RFI primarily focuses on:
- Site-specific Information;
- Operations Logistics;
- Integration & Test (I&T) / Launch/ Engineering Support; and
- Network Bandwidth and IT Security.
Interested parties are invited to respond by Feb. 20.
