The Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (DOC/NOAA) office of the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Systems (NESDIS) has awarded Next Phase a multi-year contract to conduct comprehensive engineering studies of federal and commercial satellite communications systems.  The studies will be used to determine the feasibility of sharing radio frequency spectrum between existing Federal users and commercial cellular network carriers. Spectrum sharing is becoming an increasingly important mode of operations across both government and commercial satellites during space-to-earth communications (“downlinks”). These real-time downlinks are received by NOAA, other Federal agencies, and non-Federal users who process the data to provide important weather warning, forecasting, or monitoring services such as performed by the National Weather Service (NWS).