Parsons subsidiary awarded $245M Navy ground station contract
The Blossom Point Tracking Facility campus in Maryland. Photo by Naval Research Laboratory
By
Ross Wilkers
Space Ground System Solutions will provide software development and other IT-related services at this Naval Research Laboratory location.
A subsidiary of Parsons Corp. has been awarded a five-year, $245 million contract to help the Naval Research Laboratory operate a ground station that provides pre-to-post launch support for spacecraft.
The Blossom Point Tracking Facility in Maryland houses command, control, communications, network engineering and other functions to help manage new and on-orbit assets. NRL also conducts compatibility testing, data processing and asset decommissioning efforts at Blossom Point.
Space Ground System Solutions is tasked to provide software development, cybersecurity and IT infrastructure services at Blossom Point. SGSS was the lone bidder for the NRL Satellite Software and Operations Support contract, according to the Pentagon’s Friday awards digest.
Operators at Blossom Point use the laboratory’s Neptune software to monitor and control ground equipment that supports command-and-control capabilities of satellites.
SGSS was first awarded the work in 2020. The subsidiary says NRL’s C2 software suite helps control at least 100 national security space satellites and provides control and status information regarding the ground system equipment.