Raytheon moves environmental satellite ground sustainment team to Maryland in support of major upgrade

RIVERDALE, Md., March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The team that sustains the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System (JPSS CGS) is now located much closer to key agency facilities – in support of a major upgrade to the existing system and to provide efficiencies to future missions – the company announced today.

Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) moved 70 positions from Aurora, Colorado, to Riverdale, Maryland. The 1,600 mile move concludes a strategic milestone that brings the support team for the JPSS CGS program in close proximity to NOAA's Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

"Over the course of the year, we moved our sustainment of the JPSS CGS across the country, without disrupting program operations," said Mark Sargent, the JPSS Common Ground System program director. "The move ensures we are sustaining the program in close proximity to our customer, and enables efficient extensibility of the common ground system to new missions."

The move concludes a strategic milestone as Raytheon prepares to deliver an upgraded JPSS ground system to NOAA and NASA at the end of 2015. Its improvements include faster data retrieval for improved forecasting; the ability to support multiple missions at a better value; and an adjustable architecture to efficiently prioritize the needs of the different missions that the system supports. The new system, called JPSS CGS Block 2.0, will also improve perimeter security and harden defensive features to ensure uninterrupted operations and protection of equipment in an era of growing cyber threats. This move does not impact the scheduled 2017 date for the JPSS-1 satellite launch.

The Raytheon Common Ground System was developed under contract with NASA for NOAA. The system provides mission planning, command, control and communications, data routing and data processing for satellite programs. The system's data acquisition, routing and processing supports multiple national and international agencies partnered with NOAA including the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, National Science Foundation, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

About Raytheon
Raytheon Company, with 2014 sales of $23 billion and 61,000 employees worldwide, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, security and civil markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 93 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as cyber security and a broad range of mission support services. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more about Raytheon, visit us at www.raytheon.com and follow us on Twitter @raytheon.

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