Your Space Journey

Eli Naffah is Chief of NASA's Space Communications and Spectrum Management Office.  In this interview, conducted onsite at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Eli discusses NASA's new Communications Services Program (CSP).NASA has long been a leader in space communications services, but the agency is now looking to U.S. industry to develop healthy commercially-provided satellite communications (SATCOM) capabilities, using radio frequency and optical systems, for near-Earth operations. The agency will continue to develop technologies and systems for deep space exploration, but for missions in low-Earth orbit, like those to the International Space Station, NASA believes using commercial SATCOM will help drive market innovation, improve efficiencies for NASA, and reduce costs for all providers and users. In the first step toward using these next-gen communications systems, NASA has established the Communications Services Program (CSP), which aims to better understand the current capabilities and the fea