Nov 28 2000
From The Space Library
NASA announced the selection of a science team for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), scheduled for launch in 2009. The team consisted of 10 principal investigators leading key science teams and 5 mission specialists. NASA intended SIM, part of its Origins Program, to search for Earth-sized planets around other stars; to measure precisely the locations and distances of stars throughout the Milky Way Galaxy; and to study other celestial objects, helping to answer fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of the galaxy. NASA planned to place the SIM spacecraft in an Earth-trailing orbit around the Sun, enabling the craft's multiple telescopes to gather the Sun's light and producing information normally only obtained with much larger telescopes. NASA considered identification of potential observing targets for the Terrestrial Planet Finder a critical part of SIM's mission. NASA planned the Terrestrial Planet Finder to capture images of planetary systems around other stars and to search for chemical signatures suggesting the possibility of life.
The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Integrated Program Office (IPO) selected Raytheon Company to provide imaging-sensor instruments for the new NPOESS craft, which would replace the U.S. Department of Commerce's Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. Under a contract valued at US$152.8 million, Raytheon would design, develop, and test the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument and develop the algorithms to produce environmental data records from VIIRS data.
Lockheed Martin and NASA entered into a consolidated space operations contract (CSOC), allowing NASA to use the services of two commercial, satellite ground-tracking stations. Under CSOC, NASA customers would have access on a per-pass basis to additional stations on Svalbard Island in Norway, owned by Kongsberg Spacetec-Lockheed Martin Space Data Services, and in Poker Flat, Alaska, owned by DataLynx. Both tracking stations had recently completed CSOC operational-readiness reviews in preparation for inclusion in Lockheed Martin's catalog of services available to NASA programs.
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