National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 285, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

99 -- NASA SURVEY OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITY POC Jeffrey C Lamke, Contracting Officer, (301) 286-3931. Consistent with the previously announced Commercial Convergence Study, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is conducting an assessment of commercial satellite communication systems in order to determine the feasibility of providing, through commercial systems, data relay and tracking services for spacecraft in low earth orbit. These services must provide two-way communications and data relay, along with tracking, to low earth orbiting user spacecraft in several frequency bands (S and Ku) allocated to Government use. To prevent very large and significant impacts to existing users and users currently in the implementation stages, commercial systems providing this service in the near term would need to also operate in these bands and operate in a manner so as to be nearly transparent to presently planned user operations. If commercial capabilities could physically provide these services in these bands, NASA will consider making these bands available for use by such commercial systems, solely to provide services to the Government. For providing near term services, one possibility might involve the integration of a NASA user satellite communications payload augmentation on what is otherwise a commercial satellite but no limitation is implied by the use of this example. Parties that can provide this capability are invited to respond to this synopsis and are requested to submit a capabilities statement describing their approach and their experience with communication satellite systems. The capabilities statement shall not exceed 4 pages (excluding cover sheet). NASA will consider all information provided by respondents with experience and capabilities in operating large satellite communications systems, and with the financial and programmatic resources in place to perform all operations tasks. Acknowledgment of receipt of information will not be made. This information shall be forwarded for analysis to bd Systems, Inc. of Torrance, CA. bd Systems is a NASA Contractor conducting a related study on the general feasibility of converging the existing NASA user satellite communications system with a commercial communications satellite system. bd Systems may or may not contact respondents to this special notice for additional information. This is not a request for proposal and should not be construed as a commitment by the Government. Responses may be submitted by FAX to (301) 286-1721 or by mail to the Contracting Officer listed above at mail Code 285. Responses must be submitted within 15 days of the publication date of this synopsis. (0167)

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