Satellite Enhances Climate Studies
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| Photo courtesy of NOAA NESDIS Office of Systems Development |
As scientists continue their study of the oceans' relationship to climate change, innovative satellite technology is leading the way. One of the latest satellites launched with our help measures ocean height, which allows the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to determine such conditions as wind speed, ocean currents and global sea-level rise.
For 14 months, the CSC team responsible for designing, developing and implementing the ground network infrastructure for the low-earth satellite Jason-2 was working on a low-security system. Then, the system was reclassified as high security. Faced with the challenge of an additional 170 technical controls, the Jason-2 team had just seven months until the satellite's June 20, 2008, launch to design and implement new solutions.
Turning on a dime
Taking its name from Greek mythology's Jason and the Argonauts, like its two predecessors - TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 satellites - the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 uses high-precision ocean altimetry to measure the distance between the satellite and the ocean surface to within a few centimeters. According to scientists, the climate data gleaned from this mission will help us understand how ocean circulation is linked to global climate change.
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The CSC team of project manager James Boney, lead network architect John Witz, lead security architect Guy Crumpley, and network and security engineer Henry O. Stein devised an innovative, affordable and reusable solution, ensuring that the satellite launched on schedule. As our first accredited high-security ground system with NOAA, this business model can now be used for projects for other clients in the cyber security market.
The Jason NOAA Security Engineering Team won the 2007 President's Award for Excellence in Business Initiative in IT Infrastructure Solutions, from our North American Public Sector President Jim Sheaffer. And the team was recognized as a 2009 CSC Chairman's Award for Excellence finalist.
With NOAA, the team examined the number of controls and price for each requirement, as well as what NOAA could accomplish through their own capabilities and what CSC would need to implement for them.
"We gave them a catalog, a list of options that they could purchase that would satisfy the different elements of high security," says Boney, under whose leadership the contract grew 24 percent, from $3.7 million to $4.6 million. "We put together a shopping list - these are the requirements and these are the solutions and these are the prices that go with each solution."
Higher security for same price
The CSC team then designed an upgraded version of the Jason-2 ground system, incorporating greater network redundancy, multi-factor authentication, automation of many of its security controls and open-source solutions. By leveraging NOAA's existing enterprise security controls, CSC kept costs down and ultimately delivered a high-security system for the same cost as the original low-security system.
"The biggest challenge was trying to integrate these security controls without affecting the functionality and the operations of the system," says Angelo Wade, NOAA Ground Systems Contracting Officer Technical Representative/Jason-2 Implementation Manager. "You want to proceed cautiously with such a high-risk implementation when you're trying to command a satellite."