Calian to supply NASA with third high-performance antenna

Ontario-based Calian Group (TSX: CGY) will supply a third high-performance antenna to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to support its space geodesy project.

The 12-metre antenna will be set up for NASA’s Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Global Observing System (VGOS).

The antenna will support NASA’s Space Geodesy project, which is maintaining the global geodetic infrastructure of several networks and individual ground stations, including VGOS network of antennas.

Calian subsidiary InterTronic will be supplying the antenna. Calian acquired InterTronic in 2021, and describes the subsidiary as a leading high performance antenna provider, with state-of-the-art, high-precision solutions.

InterTronic president Mohamed Saad said its pleasing to continue the long-standing relationship with NASA.

“The InterTronic and NASA-VLBI teams have collaborated in developing an innovative capability that is vital to the VGOS network for almost a decade now,” he said.

Calian offers services to the health, defence, security, aerospace, engineering, AgTech, and IT industries, enabling people to communicate, innovate, learn, stay safe and lead healthy lives with confidence.

Calian’s ‘state-of-the-art’ antennas

Calian’s antennas’ ultra-strong design mitigates thermal, wind and gravity load distortion, providing exceptional performance in all frequency bands, while offering state-of-the-art tracking, pointing accuracy and reference point stability

The company was pleased its product met NASA’s specific demands, as the VGOS program demands the highest quality precision VLBI antennas.

VLBI is a space geodetic technique used in geodesy, which is the science of measuring and understanding the Earth’s geometric shape, orientation in space, and gravity field, as well as the changes to these properties over time.

Data extracted from the VLBI antennas is used by NASA to determine the antenna locations on the Earth, the celestial positions in the sky and Earth’s orientation in space.

VLBI antennas reveal critical information about Earth

VLBI antennas can also measure the Earth’s orientation in space, from which geoscientists then study the atmosphere, ocean tides and currents, and the elastic response of Earth.

Calian president of Advanced Technologies Patrick Thera said the company is always determined to take on new and innovative challenges.

“The world-class technical and production capabilities of InterTronic used to meet the exacting requirements at NASA will serve us well in our other markets, including our cost-effective commercial antenna solutions,” he said.