NASA selects RTX's Blue Canyon Technologies to provide CubeSat buses for PolSIR mission
LAFAYETTE, Colo. - The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selected RTX's small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colo., to build two 12U CubeSat buses for NASA's PolSIR mission.
The PolSIR mission will study ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions. In addition to designing and manufacturing the bus platforms, Blue Canyon will also provide mission operations services.
The PolSIR instrument –Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer– will observe the full diurnal cycle of high-altitude ice clouds to improve climate forecasts and provide climate models with important insights into how Earth's atmosphere will change in the future.
Each spacecraft will be equipped with radiometers that will observe the clouds' daily cycle of ice content through two separate wavelengths in two spectral bands and will fly in orbits separated by three to nine hours. Over time, these two instruments will observe the clouds' daily cycle of ice content.
Related: NASA taps RTX's Blue Canyon for pair of satellites for climate mission
NASA Goddard will provide the project management team that builds the two instruments for the Principal Investigator-led mission from Vanderbilt University, and the Space Science and Engineering Center will conduct science operations at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
"Supporting this critical mission builds on our heritage of weather monitoring missions including TEMPEST-D and TROPICS," said Chris Winslett, general manager of Blue Canyon Technologies.
