Satellite and Ground System Solutions at Your Fingertips

About this technology

Overview

Integral Systems, Inc., a leading provider of satellite ground systems and the first company to offer an integrated suite of commercial-off-the-shelf software products for satellite command and control, is helping NASA keep a careful watch for any close-encountering asteroids with its tracking technology. The company supported the first NASA Discovery mission, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) program, back in 1996, and has expanded its business by building more ground systems for a greater variety of satellites than any other company in the world. The experience gained from the company's participation in developing satellite command and control ground systems for the NEAR program has bolstered its flagship product line, the EPOCH Integrated Product Suite (IPS), first featured in Spinoff 1997, and led to the creation of its latest product, the Skylight Direct Broadcast Ground Terminal. Skylight was developed to provide a complete architecture for the reception and processing of remote-sensing data collected from low-Earth orbiting satellites. Some of these data are processed to create fire-detection maps, volcano-eruption alerts, and atmospheric profiles for sea surface temperature and vegetation indexes. The Skylight terrestrial-based terminal provides full end-to-end image-processing capabilities, including data acquisition and processing.