Posted by John Keller
ASHBURN, Va., 26 March 2010. U.S. Navy researchers needed a spacecraft bus for the Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (JMAPS) mission. They found their solution from AeroAstro Inc. in Ashburn, Va.
AeroAstro, a subsidiary of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. in Melville, N.Y., won a $37.9 million contract from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington to provide the company's Astro 200AS bus to host the JMAPS instrument over a three-year mission life.
The JMAPS mission is primarily intended to update the star position catalog for critical national security and civil applications. JMAPS covers the magnitude range of 1—12, with extended results through 15th magnitude at an accuracy of 1 milliarcsecond (mas) positional accuracy at a mean observing epoch of approximately 2013. JMAPS will use a relatively modest aperture astrometric telescope flown in low earth orbit (LEO) aboard a microsatellite.
"The capability offered by this spacecraft enables a range of new high-value mission and sensor options on an affordable platform that can be rapidly developed and deployed," says AeroAstro President Paul Lithgow.
For more information contact AeroAstro online at www.AeroAstro.com.
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