[Satellite Today 03-31-09] NASA awarded Harris Corp. a 14-month, multimillion-dollar contract to develop Ka-band capable radios as part of the communication navigation and networking reconfigurable testbed (Connect), which will be installed onboard the International Space Station (ISS), Harris announced March 30.
    The Connect program, scheduled to be launched in 2011 on a Japanese H-2 launch vehicle, will demonstrate space telecommunications radio system-compliant software-defined radios that will provide an on-orbit, adaptable radio facility to conduct a suite of experiments.
    Separately, Harris announced that its OS/Comet product for satellite control now includes Neo, a network enabled operations capability for platform-independent remote access.
    Neo was developed to address customer requests for Web-based remote connection to Harris’ OS/Comet operations. OS/Comet provides telemetry, tracking, and commanding capabilities.