CONTACT: Patricia Viets FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3/1/96
A $26.6 million contract for processing and distributing data from environmental satellites has been awarded to PRC Inc. of McLean, Va., the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The contract, spanning one year with four one-year options, is a follow-on contract for operation, maintenance, and technical support of the GOES Data Distribution System. This system receives, processes, and distributes data from NOAA's geostationary operational environment satellites, whose cloud images are well- known to television viewers. It also distributes data from NOAA's polar-orbiting environmental satellites, which orbit the Earth from pole to pole, gathering environmental data.
The meteorological, hydrologic and oceanographic data gathered by the satellites are essential for NOAA's forecast and warning services that save lives and property. NOAA operates two geostationary satellites, GOES-8 and GOES-9, and two polar-orbiting satellites, NOAA-12 and NOAA-14. The satellites are operated by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.
Under this contract, PRC will provide support at several NOAA facilities in the Washington, D.C., area, as well as at NOAA facilities in Miami, Kansas City, San Francisco, Anchorage and Honolulu.