The Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite was successfully launched today from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site in the Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. C/NOFS is a Department of Defense (DOD) Space Test Program and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) mission that will forecast outages in DOD satellite communication links caused by ionospheric irregularities.

The satellite communication and navigation systems used by the Air Force and other DOD agencies are susceptible to outages due to ionospheric disturbances (scintillations) in the Earth’s equatorial region. C/NOFS is designed to help predict these scintillations. C/NOFS is the first-ever satellite system to forecast the potential degradation of satellite communication, navigation and surveillance systems due to ionospheric scintillations.

General Dynamics was the prime contractor responsible for the design, development, payload and system integration, test and launch of the satellite. Assembly of the spacecraft and payload integration took place at its space systems factory in Gilbert, Arizona. General Dynamics worked with
the AFRL to incorporate the six payloads into a fully functional space satellite. Orbital Sciences Corp. was the mission launch provider using its Pegasus launch service.