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Harris Wins FAA Contract to Distribute NAS-Wide Weather Data

By Juliet Van Wagenen | April 29, 2015
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FAA user consults weather-aware decision support tools in the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
FAA user consults weather-aware decision support tools in the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center. Photo: Richard Ferris

[Avionics Today 04-29-2015] The FAA has selected Harris Corporation for an eight-year, single-award Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to design and implement a system that will disseminate real-time, comprehensive weather pictures to all aviation users across the National Airspace System (NAS). The contract has a potential value of $238 million.

When implemented, the Common Support Services-Weather (CSS-Wx) program aims to help minimize flight delays and cancellations by providing additional weather data with increased accuracy to more aviation consumers, supporting real-time operational planning and decision-making. The Harris CSS-Wx system is scalable, with Open Geospatial Consortium standards for common weather formats, and geospatial- and temporal-based filtering methods to process meteorological data.

“About 70 percent of flight delays are caused by weather,” said Carl D’Alessandro, vice president and general manager of civil programs at Harris Government Communications Systems. “The enterprise-wide, data-sharing design of the CSS-Wx solution will reduce these delays, saving the FAA and flying public precious time and money.”

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