Navy researchers to ask industry for new ways of exchanging communications radio signals with space objects

WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy researchers are asking industry to find new ways of communicating between the ground and deployed spacecraft with radio signals.

Officials of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington announced their intention Monday to issue a solicitation (N00173-19-R-LN11) later this month for the Transmitting Energy Radio Frequency (RF) Systems project.

The project will focus on space-to-ground research for transmitting energy across the RF spectrum to various objects in space. The targeted space object will process the RF energy, and antennas at locations throughout the world will collect the information for analysis.

The NRL's Space Systems Development Department supports applied research expected to boost enabling technologies for Navy missions. This potential five-year acquisition will competed on a full and open-competition basis, and awarded to one contractor.

NRL officials will post a request for proposals (RFP) for this space RF communications project on or about 21 Oct. 2019 on the Federal Business Opportunities website at www.fbo.gov.

Email questions or concerns to the NRL's Jamie Newman at [email protected]. More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DON/ONR/N00173/N00173-19-R-LN11/listing.html.