The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded Harris Corporation a three-year, $284 million contract extension for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R) ground segment. This extension aimed to modernize the ground-computing infrastructure, reduce the IT footprint, and lay the foundation for future migration to cloud technologies. It extended the partnership with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) to 13 years, bringing the total contract value to $1.65 billion.
The GOES-R ground segment controls and commands NOAA’s geostationary weather satellites, including GOES-16 (East) and GOES-17 (West), and will support future satellites like GOES-T and GOES-U. It collects and processes approximately 3.5 terabytes of science data daily, providing critical information for severe weather warnings, real-time fire detection, and other life-saving applications used by the U.S. National Weather Service and over 10,000 direct users worldwide.
The first two satellites in the GOES-R Series launched in 2016 and 2018 and are currently operational. The ground segment also controls the Harris-built main payload, the Advanced Baseline Imager, and other onboard instruments.
