Space Systems Development Department

The Space Systems Development Department (SSDD) is the space and ground support systems research and development organization of the Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST). Located at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, the primary objective of the SSDD is to develop space systems to respond to Navy, Department of Defense, and national mission requirements with improved performance, capacity, reliability, efficiency, and/or life cycle cost. Together with the Spacecraft Engineering Department (SED), the SSDD derives system requirements from a mission, develops architectures in response to these requirements, and designs and develops systems, subsystems, equipment, and implementation technologies to achieve an optimized, integrated operational space and ground system.

These development responsibilities extend across the entire space/ground spectrum of hardware, software and advanced technologies including digital processing and control, analog systems, power, communications, command and telemetry, radio frequency, optical, payload and electromechanical systems, as well as systems engineering. The Department operates four space research and engineering support field sites in Maryland, Virginia and California. The Department technical programs include the following:

• A full space systems engineering capability from mission concept development to on-orbit engineering and operational support.
• System architecture and development of satellite payloads. Current research includes optical systems, spacecraft processors and controllers, signal processing, data management, and algorithm and software development.
• The design, fabrication, test, integration and launch support for electrical/electronic components and systems.
• The development and implementation of ground stations for communication, data collection, processing and dissemination, and spacecraft tracking, telemetry and control systems as well as tactical communications systems.
• Space surveillance, advanced satellite navigation technology and precise time and time interval theory and techniques.