Antennas Lower Cost of Satellite Access
SeaSpace Corporation, of Poway, California, recognized a need for developing economical systems for receiving, processing, analyzing, and archiving incoming data from X-band remote sensing satellites, as they already provided similar systems for L- and S-band satellites. This need was one experienced throughout the world, as people became more reliant upon high-resolution satellite data. This was especially true within NASA, where the Space Agency could save millions of dollars by having available commercial providers of low-cost satellite data receivers accommodate its remote sensing program needs.
Transcript
00:00:01 [Music] satellites are constantly orbiting the Earth and observing our planet for a variety of reasons but how do scientists discover what those satellites see in the early 1980s a researcher at California script Institute of oceanography started a company called c-pace Corporation the new firm began working on Technologies to help
00:00:20 scientists access the data satellites were collecting c-space has worked with NASA on many science programs in the 1990s they teamed with NASA's jet propulsion laboratory to build a Loc system to acquire the data from NASA satellite missions The Firm developed software and hardware for an xand ground station system to directly receive the data in real time they also developed
00:00:41 software called terce scan for increased antenna control and data framing accuracy something new for the industry our software has was developed by scientists for the use of scientists so it contains a lot of algorithms and of course working with NASA and were able to take some of the work that they have done incorporate into our product line and then every user has access to that
00:01:03 the c-space system was used to download some of the First Data from the Tera Mission Tera the flagship of NASA's Earth observing system or EOS collect high resolution data on global climate and environmental change scientists use the data to understand the changes taking place on our home planet and make predictions for the future because of its low cost the teror scan system made
00:01:24 it possible for universities and others to now access the data as well they use our data received by the our systems through the NASA satellites to be able to to do ocean studies but the university has a lot more of a line use since then the company has installed over 50 xand systems and 450 Terror scan systems around the world the Navy uses a system for
00:01:50 operational flight plans and monitoring dust storms in Iraq and Afghanistan they're able to save lives they don't want to get all the engines on the f-16s you know damaged because that's thousands of dollars and then the government is going to have to spend just into repairing but also it's applicable to ground troops you know you don't want to deploy uh troops into an
00:02:10 area in which they won't have any support you know in order for them to mobilize you're going to need air support therefore you know they they all collaborate and they look at the data also to to do anian operations or you know sending the the combat units into into the battlefields another system located in Antarctica is used for predicting ice thickness in movement
00:02:30 whenever the coast car Cutters go to leave uh supplies for the winter you know they're able to determine how thick the IC is so they are able to cut channels that saves of course a lot of cost of energy c-space has teamed up with the vexel corporation a subsidiary of Microsoft to deliver a high-end data acquisition system to the Chilean Air Force c-space developed the data
00:02:53 collection technology and vexel the software to process the data vexel software is also the result of an early NASA partnership today the firm continues to develop technologies that will help NASA and other researchers around the world be able to better study and understand our home planet [Music]