Case Study: Norsat Customizes SSPA For NASA

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center operates the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft for high-altitude, long-duration Earth science missions. Acquired from the U.S. Air Force, this autonomously flown aircraft is built under the original Global Hawk Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator development program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Norsat’s customized ATOM Series SSPA is a Ku-band solid-state power amplifier that is used in NASA’s HIWRAP aircraft radar instrument at 60,000 feet. This special  SSPA which needed to be customized with a distinct capacitor board to allow operation at high altitudes was specially designed by Norsat for NASA.