Satellite System Satellite Groundstation News Publications Home	Wavix Receives Tibbett's Award for immediate release, 15 November 1999 (Photo shows, left to right: Aida Alvarez, Administrator of the SBA; Mr. John Borden, President of Wavix; and Roland Tibbetts, founder of the SBIR program.) Rockville, MD     John Borden, President of Wavix, Incorporated, announced today that Wavix was selected as a winner in the fourth annual "Tibbetts Awards" from the Small Business Administration (SBA). This prestigious annual award is given to about 60 people and organizations from around the country for providing outstanding Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) leadership and in recognition of their unique contributions as "SBIR Models of Excellence." Wavix, along with the other winners, was recognized in a day-long series of events that included breakfast at the White House and a Congressional reception on Capital Hill. Earlier this year, Wavix was recognized by NASA for its innovative development efforts with a 1999 NASA Space Act Award. Through this program, NASA rewards the creative development of scientific contributions which have been determined to be of significant value in the advancement of the aerospace technology program of NASA. Wavix received these awards based on a 1995 NASA SBIR collaboration between Jackson and Tull, a minority-owned aerospace engineering company, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the world’s leading marine research organizations. This SBIR initiative, titled "Modular Offshore Data Acquisition System," merged the latest technologies in communications, data systems, sensors, buoys, and moorings to create a breakthrough in ocean observing. Wavix was spun off to commercialize that successful prototype development effort. Wavix was formed in response to a growing demand for information from the oceans to support research into the human impact on climate change and deep-water oil exploration. The Wavix buoy system was designed such that the suite of sensors and software can be easily reconfigured to support a wide variety of data collection needs. The buoy's robust design, combined with its configuration flexibility, makes the Wavix buoy system an excellent solution for large operational oceanographic data collection programs. As part of this development effort, Wavix conceived and created the WavSat satellite communication system. WavSat is a two-satellite constellation of low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites tailored specifically to serve the oceanographic market. It is unique in its ability to transmit large volumes of data at considerably lower prices than other satellite services. WavSat also provides two-way communications, allowing researchers to send commands to their buoy to recover from failures or to change experiment parameters. In creating WavSat, Wavix established an innovative alliance with two non-profit organizations: Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) and SatelLife. The three organizations have pooled their resources so that communications capacity is available to Wavix while the satellites are also used for health, humanitarian, and development purposes in developing countries. As the commercial anchor-tenant for this satellite system, Wavix is providing the monetary foundation for this humanitarian mission.
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