WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Defense solutions provider Raytheon, an RTX Corp. (RTX) business, announced Thursday it was awarded a $506 million contract from NASA to design and build the Landsat Next Instrument Suite (LandIS), which includes three next generation space instruments, with an option for an additional instrument.
The instrument suite will perform Earth observation from three identical observatories from Low-Earth orbit. LandIS will collect images of the Earth's surface every six days, detecting natural and human-induced changes, using multispectral imaging technology.
The data from Landsat Next and the LandIS sensors will offer critical information about land use, crop production, weather activities, and natural resources. The first LandIS sensor is expected be delivered in 2028. Work on this contract will be performed in El Segundo, California.
The next generation instrument will help to identify patterns that may have been missed in prior missions due to timing of image collection or image fidelity, helping agencies to respond to natural disasters, human migration, and environmental disasters.
Since the 1970s, Raytheon has supported the Landsat mission, building the Multi Spectral Scanner (MSS) in 1972 and building the instruments for Landsat missions 2 through 7.
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