OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2016.
Orbital
ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense
technologies, today announced that it has been awarded a contract by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (
NASA) to design and build
Landsat 9, an advanced land surface mapping satellite to be operated by
the
United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The Landsat 9 satellite will extend the Landsat program's record of
global terrestrial imagery to half a century. Under the contract,
Orbital ATK will design and manufacture the satellite, integrate the two
government furnished instruments with the spacecraft and support launch,
early orbit operations and on-orbit check-out of the observatory.
Landsat 9 is scheduled for launch in December of 2020.
Orbital ATK has a long history of supporting Landsat satellites
including the success of the company-designed and built Landsat 8
satellite, which was launched in 2013 and is delivering high quality
images in quantities exceeding mission requirements. The company was
also responsible for the successful Landsat 4 and Landsat 5 satellites
launched in 1982 and 1984.
“Orbital ATK is honored to have been selected to build the next Landsat
satellite,” said
Steve Krein, Vice President of Science and
Environmental Programs at Orbital ATK. “Landsat represents over four
decades of imagery, providing valuable data for agriculture, global
change research, emergency response, and disaster relief. We’re proud to
build upon the success of our previous Landsat projects with the
delivery of this new satellite.”
Landsat 9 is based on the company’s LEOStar-3 platform, the medium-class
low-Earth-orbit spacecraft successfully flown on Landsat 8 and NASA’s
Fermi and Swift Gamma-ray astrophysics observatories. This is also the
platform under contract for the upcoming ICESat-2 Earth science
satellite and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-2 spacecraft.
Landsat 9 will be designed, manufactured and tested by Orbital ATK’s
Space Systems Group at its facilities in Gilbert, Arizona, the same
location and production team that executed the Landsat 8 program.
About Orbital ATK
Orbital ATK is a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies.
The company designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation
systems for customers around the world, both as a prime contractor and
merchant supplier. Its main products include launch vehicles and related
propulsion systems; missile products, subsystems and defense
electronics; precision weapons, armament systems and ammunition;
satellites and associated space components and services; and advanced
aerospace structures.
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