Ajay Mehta is the Director of the Office of Satellite Ground Services (OSGS) within
NESDIS. In this role, he is responsible for leading ground sustainment efforts for
operational satellite systems in low-Earth, geostationary, and deep-space orbits. He
is also responsible for leading the transformation and transition of the
organization's data ingest, processing, dissemination, and archive capabilities to the
cloud.
His previous responsibilities included serving in the role of the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Systems, where he was responsible for providing oversight of
NOAA's satellite acquisition programs by evaluating cost, schedule, and
performance of its $1.3 billion/year Earth and space weather satellite portfolio.
He has represented NESDIS on a number of national and internal groups, including
joint NOAA and NASA governance boards. He has also served as the Deputy
Director for the Joint Polar Satellite System, an $18.9 billion program providing
essential observations for the Nation's weather forecasting enterprise, and as the
Deputy Director of the Office of Satellite and Product Operations where he was
responsible for managing five Divisions comprising more than 300 civil servants
and 250 contractors.
His responsibilities have included overseeing the command and control of more
than 17 civil and defense weather satellites; development and dissemination of
more than 300 weather and environmental products and services to national and
international users; and management of the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility,
Suitland, Maryland; as well as two Command and Data Acquisition Stations (Wallops
Island, Virginia, and Fairbanks Alaska); serve as the U.S. Representative to the
Cospas-Sarsat Council – an international program for satellite-aided search and
rescue, data collection systems, and the National Ice Center.