NASA Awards Contracts for NPP Spacecraft Design

NASA has started preliminary design work on a next-generation environmental satellite by awarding study contracts to Ball Aerospace and Spectrum Astro, Inc., each of which received US$3 million Rapid-II awards. (The Rapid “catalog” is used to speed the procurement of spacecraft systems.) The design study is part of the NASA NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP), a program aimed at reducing risk through early flight validation of sensors critical to the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).

Based on results of the eight-month study, NASA expects to select one of the companies' spacecraft designs early next year, at which time NASA will award a contract to build the NPP satellite. The satellite is scheduled for launch into a 515-mile orbit in late 2005, carrying three instruments designed to study global changes. The instruments will measure atmospheric temperature and humidity at various altitudes; sea surface temperature; land and ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties.

The Ball Aerospace design will be based on its Ball Commercial Platform 2000. The Spectrum Astro design will be based on the SA-200HP bus. There were five companies in the first round of design competition.

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