AURORA, Colo., Dec. 3 -- Raytheon Co. has been selected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a one-year study contract worth $2.5 million, as an initial step toward the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) system. Raytheon will identify advanced architecture concepts for GOES-R, a series of satellites that provide observations of the Earth and its environment. The instruments aboard the satellites measure the emitted and reflected radiation of the Earth from which cloud cover, atmospheric temperature and moisture can be derived. Each satellite in the GOES series supports two major instruments: an imager and a sounder; these instruments resolve visible and infrared data, as well as temperature and moisture profiles of the Earth's atmosphere. The satellite continuously transmits these data to ground terminals, where the data are processed and rebroadcast. NASA launched the first NOAA GOES satellite in 1975. The last GOES launch was in April 1994.
The Raytheon GOES-R team is based at Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems Aurora, Colo., business campus. Other Raytheon businesses contributing to the contract are Raytheon Technical Services Co. (Landover, Md.) and Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems (El Segundo, Calif.).
For more information, visit: www.raytheon.com