NOAA, GSA Officially Open New Environmental Satellite Center

The new home for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) around-the-clock environmental satellite operations, which provides critical data for weather and climate prediction, was officially opened last month at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Suitland, Maryland. Top leaders from NOAA, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and several U.S. congressional representatives from Maryland said the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) signifies America’s solid commitment to providing the best possible environmental satellite services. "The NOAA Satellite Operations Facility is a first-class center with first- class technology and operations that supply essential satellite data to forecasters in order to produce the most accurate projections possible," said VAdm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "Such a facility has a significant role in, for example, predicting where hurricanes will form, and when and where they will strike."

Tropical regions of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and east Pacific Ocean are continuously monitored by NOAA’s geostationary weamer satellites, and the resulting satellite imagery is utilized by National Hurricane Center forecasters and is available to me media and the public. Hundreds of images are taken of a given storm.

Each day, NSOF processes more than 16 billion bytes of environmental satellite data from NOAA’s geostationary and polar- orbiting spacecraft and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Meteorological Satellite program.

The NOAA National Weather Service uses these data for constant tracking of severe weather and as inputs into models for medium to long-range forecasts for weather and tracking climate change.

NSOF, which spans 208,271 gross square feet, supports more than $50 million of high-technology equipment, including 16 antennas that control more than $4.7 billion worth of environmental spacecraft.

"NOAA and its employees are world-class-from the researchers to the scientists, forecasters and satellite experts," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Democrat, said. "They are working every day to save lives and livelihoods. The nation depends on them to help local weather forecasters get it right so our citizens can secure their property and protect their families, and to assist in search-and- rescue operations for lost mariners. They deserve a world-class facility so they can do their job and meet NOAA’s mission and mandate."

"This remarkable facility is the culmination of a successful partnership between NOAA, the GSA, Prince George’s County and private-sector partners, giving us the opportunity to bener monitor global climate change and its impact on Maryland," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Democrat. "Additionally, its environmentally friendly design demonstrates that the federal government can be a leader in changing the way Americans think about constructing energy- efficient buildings."

NSOF, situated on the Suitland Federal Center campus, was designed by the firms Morphosis (Santa Monica, California) and Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture and Engineering pc (Washington, D.C.) and has received several awards, including the GSA Design Award for 2002. Thorn Mayne, head of Morphosis, received me industry’s coveted Pritzker architecture prize for NSOF’s design.

A key design feature of NSOF, which is mostly located underground, is the grass roof, covering 146,000 square feet.

Copyright Compass Publications, Inc. Jul 2007