General Dynamics Gets $116.3 Million NASA Landsat Order

NASA gave General Dynamics Corp. [GD] a $116.3 million delivery order for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Inc., will be responsible for design and fabrication of the LDCM spacecraft bus, integration of the government furnished instruments, satellite-level testing, on-orbit satellite check-out, and continuing on-orbit engineering support.

The firm also will provide a spacecraft/observatory simulator.

LDCM is a component of the Landsat Program conducted jointly by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of Interior.

NASA is providing the LDCM spacecraft, the instruments, the launch vehicle, and the mission operations element of the ground system.

USGS is providing the mission operations center and ground processing systems, as well as the flight operations team.

The delivery order was awarded under the Rapid II Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity Contract. The Rapid II contract is for core spacecraft systems, with non-standard services such as operations, launch services, components and studies to meet space science, Earth science and technology needs.

The contract includes fabrication and testing of the spacecraft with mission specific design modifications; generation of interface control documents, instrument and full spacecraft integration; testing, shipment to the launch site, launch vehicle integration support and on-orbit checkout.

With a five-year design lifetime, the LDCM satellite will continue the series of measurements begun with the Landsat-1 mission for collecting, archiving and distributing multi-spectral imagery.

This imagery will provide global, synoptic, and repetitive coverage of land surfaces at a scale where natural and human-induced changes can be detected, differentiated, characterized and monitored over time.

The LDCM goal is consistent with the Landsat programmatic goals derived from the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. This policy requires that the Landsat Program provide data into the future that is sufficiently consistent with previous Landsat data to allow the detection and quantitative characterization of changes in or on the land surface of the globe.

The LDCM was conceived as a follow-on mission to the Landsat series of missions that have provided coverage of continental surfaces since 1972.

Data from these missions constitute the longest continuous record of the Earth’s surface as seen from space.

NASA Awards Support Contract For Marshall Space Flight Center

Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., gave Deltha-Critique Joint Venture a pact worth up to $29 million with options to provide administrative support services for the center.

The five-year contract runs from June 1 to May 31, 2013.

Deltha will provide general administrative duties, record maintenance, desktop processing, TDY support processing, and human resource automated and transactional processing. Additional support includes paralegal support, court reporting support, temporary management support assistance, and NASA Stars Resume Operations Center support.

NASA And Small Firm Join To Develop Nanosatellites

Ames Research Centerand m2mi Corp. will join in developing nanosatellites, NASA announced.

They are small satellites weighing between 11 and 110 pounds. A large number of these satellites, called a constellation, will be placed in low Earth orbit for the new telecommunications and networking system.

“NASA wants to work with companies to develop a new economy in space,”

said Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden. “m2mi has great technology that fits excellently with our goals, while enhancing the commercial use of NASA-developed technologies.”

“The constellation will provide a robust, global, space-based, high-speed network for communication, data storage and Earth observations,” said m2mi CEO Geoff Brown.

“Nanosatellites take advantage of the significant technological advances in microelectronics and will be produced using low-cost, mass-production techniques.”

Under the agreement, NASA and m2mi will cooperate to develop a fifth generation telecommunications and networking system for Internet protocol-based and related services.

The effort will combine NASA expertise in nanosensors, wireless networks and nanosatellite technologies with m2mi capabilities in software technology, sensors, global system awareness, adaptive control and commercialization capabilities.

Fifth Generation, or 5G, incorporates Voice Over Internet Protocol, video, data, wireless, and an integrated machine-to-machine intelligence layer, or m2mi, for seamless information exchange and use.

Raytheon Gains $79 Million For Taiwan Patriot Upgrade

Raytheon Co. [RTN] received a $79 million Foreign Military Sales award from the U.S. Army to provide Taiwan with Patriot Configuration-3 radar upgrade kits and related engineering and technical services.

The award for Taiwan Patriot upgrade kits follows recent company announcements of contracts totaling $279 million to provide South Korea command and control, communications, and maintenance support and training equipment for its Patriot air and missile defense system.

Additionally, Raytheon announced Patriot contract awards of $377 million and $115 million in February and March, respectively. These awards included engineering services, missile upgrades and support for the U.S. Army “Pure Fleet” initiative.

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) is the prime contractor for the Patriot system and the integration of all its variants.

Work will be performed by Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems at the Integrated Air Defense Center, Andover, Mass.; the Warfighter Protection Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Mission Capability and Verification Center, White Sands, N.M.

Lockheed Submits Operationally Responsive Space Proposals

Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] provided proposals to meet operationally responsive space needs.

Lockheed submitted the proposals to the Department of Defense to advance technologies for fielding rapid and responsive space systems.

Proposals were submitted to the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., in response to three Broad Agency Announcements (BAA) released in March that addressed a range of capabilities in the ORS mission area.

These include responsive spacecraft bus and payloads technologies; a multi-mission low earth orbit modular space vehicle; and responsive launch, range and system architecture and modeling technologies.

Lockheed responded to each of these BAAs with proposed solutions.

ORS BAAs represent the latest in a series of activities undertaken by the U.S. military to develop technologies required to facilitate increasingly responsive architectures, Lockheed noted.

The ORS office is expected to award contracts for development activities in each category later this year.

QinetiQ Gains $190 Million NASA Contract

 NASA gave QinetiQ unit QinetiQ North America Missions Solutions Group a $190 million contract for work at Goddard Space Flight Center, Md.

Under the five-year pact, QinetiQ will provide environmental test and integration services.

These will include providing facility services, cable fabrication, optical services and thermal blanket fabrication for a variety of projects that may involve the current space observatory Hubble Space Telescope, the future James Webb Space Telescope, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The company also will work with Goddard to ensure that all future spacecraft can endure the environmental hardships of space travel. It will provide thermal and vacuum chamber testing, mechanical and optical integration, equipment recertification, facility operations and maintenance, information technology services, and general integration and testing support.