Johns Hopkins APL Satellite Communication Facility Plays Critical Role in U.S. Lunar Initiative

A signature facility on the campus of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is playing a pivotal role for one of NASA’s most critical initiatives.

Dating back to the Sputnik era, APL’s Satellite Communications Facility (SCF) has provided support for a broad range of spaceflight missions for more than six decades. Now the SCF team is providing communications support for Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 — a lunar lander mission that launched on Jan. 15. The SCF will receive data during both cruise and lunar surface operations.

As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to collaborate with American companies to deliver science and technology payloads to the lunar surface, Blue Ghost is carrying 10 science and technology instruments for the agency to deploy on the Moon in March. The institutions connected with Blue Ghost Mission 1 also participate in the APL-led Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium, a collaboration across the government, industry and research institutions.

“APL has provided communications services for lunar missions before,” said Michael Norkus, supervisor of the Space Mission Operations Group (SIO) — which is responsible for SCF operations — in APL’s Space Exploration Sector (SES). “We’re eager to support U.S. industry as they perform science and technology objectives that advance that capabilities and interests of our nation.”

A Responsive Team and ‘A Valuable Asset’

Lisa McGee, a program manager in SES, applauded the APL team’s dedication to ensuring the SCF can deliver critical support for missions such as Blue Ghost.

“The facility is highly agile, and our team is passionate about the support they provide,” McGee said. “The team did a great job flexing to support this NASA mission and ensure uninterrupted operations.”

The dish is a hallmark of the Laboratory’s campus and an essential piece of its history. It continues to play a critical role in space missions now, and will do so long into the future. “The facility is a marvel of engineering and a valuable national asset,” said Norkus.

In 2024, the SCF played a key role in providing space situational awareness in the cislunar domain to U.S. Space Command and the National Space Defense Center.

The facility’s radio frequency tracking capabilities and expertise from ground personnel have been the primary — and in many cases, the sole — reliable resource of position, navigation and timing collection for satellites in flight beyond geosynchronous orbit.

“Originally designed to be a tracking facility for polar orbiting satellites, the SCF has had many lives over the decades,” said Ron Schulze, an engineer who started his career at APL working on an SCF upgrade to support the TIMED mission. “It’s had an important role in a broad range of U.S. government missions.”

Overcoming Challenges

The SCF is run by station manager Bill Dove and station systems engineer Tony Garcia, who often go to great lengths to troubleshoot and engineer solutions to maintain support for sponsors.

“We’re a lean, mean operation,” said Brian Duncan, supervisor of the Space Systems Implementation Branch, which includes Norkus’ SIO group. “The SCF is supported by a small number of folks who are highly qualified and highly experienced.”

Weather has presented additional challenges. After a July 2023 incident when lightning struck the apex of the dish, causing significant damage to its electronics, the SCF team worked furiously to bring the ground station back to full service. “The team’s ability to cobble together a solution despite such a challenge is a testament to their ingenuity and fast thinking,” said Norkus.

The SCF remains fully operational and ready to provide communications support to a broad range of missions in cislunar space.

A 60-Year Legacy and Still Making Impacts Today

Established in 1961, and working since 1963, the SCF was built to help launch the command and telemetry requirements of the world’s first satellite navigation system, Transit — one of the Laboratory’s defining innovations— under contract to the U.S. Navy.

The facility consists of two independent operational antennas, one at 16 feet (5 meters) and another at 60 feet (18.3 meters). It offers commanding, ranging, telemetry and Doppler tracking services for spacecraft missions in locations ranging from low Earth orbit to deep space, with a range approximately 2.5 times the average distance between Earth and the Sun.

APL engineers and scientists also use the SCF for research and development projects and special communication experiments.

The SCF has contributed to multiple space missions during its lifetime, including NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer, which provides unique space weather data, and the Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission, which continues to study the upper regions of Earth’s atmosphere.