Scott Nicholas
Orbital ATK has concluded its support services for an Earth observation satellite the company built for NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center to aid the validation and development of satellite and instrument technologies.
The company said Thursday NASA has decommissioned the Earth Observing-1 satellite  after a nearly 17-year mission that began in 2000.
Orbital ATK supported the EO-1 mission as the prime contractor, bus developer and mission integrator for the satellite.
The satellite has produced more than 92,000 images with equal amounts of multispectral and hyperspectral imagery on events and natural disasters that have occurred worldwide using Advanced Land Imager and Hyperion spectrometers throughout the mission.
Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s space systems group, said the mission provided data to the science community on critical events such as flooding in New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina and scenes from the World Trade Center attacks.
Orbital ATK noted the EO-1 was initially designed with a one-year mission life but the satellite continued operations 16 years beyond the original plan.
NASA also tapped the company to build the Joint Polar Satellite System-2, Landsat-9, Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite.
