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SWIFT-SAT: OBSERVATIONAL DATA SHARING -RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORIES HAVE DEALT WITH THE IMPACTS OF RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE (RFI) SINCE THEIR EARLIEST DAYS. THE REALIZATION THAT POWERFUL BROADCASTS AND SENSITIVE SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS COULD NOT EASILY COEXIST LED TO THE CREATION OF PROTECTED FREQUENCIES FOR RADIO ASTRONOMY AND TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL RADIO QUIET ZONE. THESE PROTECTIONS HAVE BEEN EXPANDED OVER TIME. NEVERTHELESS, THE EXPANSION OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS TO EVER HIGHER FREQUENCIES, AND THE ADVENT OF GLOBE-SPANNING LOW EARTH ORBIT NETWORKS OF SATELLITES, HAVE RESULTED IN RFI AT MANY MORE FREQUENCIES AND IN REMOTE LOCATIONS. THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY NEEDS SOLUTIONS THAT ENABLE THESE COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITIES WHILE PROTECTING THE VIABILITY OF TERRESTRIAL RADIO TELESCOPES. BUILDING ON PRIOR NSF-FUNDED DESIGN AND PLANNING WORK, THIS PROJECT WILL CONSTRUCT AN OPERATIONAL DATA SHARING (ODS) SYSTEM THAT SUPPORTS AUTOMATED, REAL-TIME SPECTRUM SHARING BETWEEN RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORIES AND SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS. THE PROJECT WILL DEPLOY ODS AND EXPERIMENT WITH SPECTRUM SHARING BETWEEN THE JANSKY VERY LARGE ARRAY IN NEW MEXICO, THE GREEN BANK TELESCOPE IN WEST VIRGINIA, AND THE STARLINK CONSTELLATION OPERATED BY SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (SPACEX). STUDENTS FROM DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS WILL TAKE PART IN THIS WORK AS SUMMER INTERNS, AND PUBLIC AWARENESS OF SPECTRUM ISSUES WILL BE ENHANCED BY INTEGRATING REAL-TIME UPDATES DERIVED FROM THE ODS SYSTEM INTO THE EXISTING PUBLIC-FACING TELESCOPE STATUS DISPLAY. THE PLANNED ODS SYSTEM TRANSMITS INFORMATION ABOUT THE RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY?S STATUS AND PLANS TO THE SATELLITE OPERATOR, INCLUDING THE ANTENNA POINTING DIRECTION OR PHASED ARRAY BEAM DIRECTION, RECEIVER CENTER FREQUENCY AND BANDWIDTH AS A FUNCTION OF TIME. ODS IS STRUCTURED AS A DATABASE QUERIED BY THE SATELLITE OPERATOR, SO ONLY THE INFORMATION NEEDED BY THAT OPERATOR IS TRANSMITTED. THE OBSERVATORY AND THE OPERATOR MUTUALLY AGREE ON SHARING APPROACHES. FOR EXAMPLE, THAT SATELLITES POINTING PHASED-ARRAY BEAMS INTO A SPECIFIED ZONE NEAR THE OBSERVATORY WILL ONLY TRANSMIT IN A SUBSET OF THE OPERATOR?S LICENSED FREQUENCIES WHEN THE OBSERVATORY IS ACTIVELY SENSING IN THAT BAND. THE PROJECT EXPLORES METHODS THAT ENABLE THE OPERATOR TO USE MORE SPECTRUM THAN IS AVAILABLE UNDER CURRENT STATIC PROTECTION APPROACHES WHEN THE OBSERVATORY IS SENSING AT OTHER FREQUENCIES. THE INITIAL DEPLOYMENT AND EXPERIMENTS FOCUS ON THE 10.7-12.7 GHZ BAND. THIS AWARD REFLECTS NSF'S STATUTORY MISSION AND HAS BEEN DEEMED WORTHY OF SUPPORT THROUGH EVALUATION USING THE FOUNDATION'S INTELLECTUAL MERIT AND BROADER IMPACTS REVIEW CRITERIA.- SUBAWARDS ARE NOT PLANNED FOR THIS AWARD.

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