ITS: The Nation’s Spectrum and Communications Lab

Our mission is to ADVANCE innovation in communications technologies, INFORM spectrum and communications policy for the benefit of all stakeholders, and INVESTIGATE our Nation’s most pressing telecommunications challenges through research that employees are proud to deliver. 

News

August 4, 2026

Almost 57 years after President Richard Nixon’s long-distance telephone call — via radio — to the Apollo 11 astronauts, Artemis II marked mankind's return to the lunar neighborhood. With the potential for future space travel, economic development,...

July 1, 2026

In July, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences celebrates two anniversaries: the entry of John Howard Dellinger into the Federal workforce and the publication of the open-source FORTRAN code for the Irregular Terrain Model (ITM).   ...

June 15, 2026

Accurately predicting and modeling the impacts of terrain,...

Recent Research Publications

Ethel C. Marden and Robert D. Elbourn operating SEAC

This Month in ITS History

October 1925: First Radio Test Car Placed into Service

In October of 1925 the Department of Commerce’s first radio test car was put into operation by the National Bureau of Standards Radio Division. The test car was equipped with wavemeters, omnigraphs, sensitive receivers, a radio direction finder, a f...

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