Scott Nicholas
Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force shipped a fourth Geosynchronous Earth Orbit missile warning satellite Oct. 31 to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The company said Tuesday GEO Flight 4, the service branch’s next Space Based Infrared System, is scheduled for liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance-built Atlas V rocket in January.
SBIRS is designed to help the U.S. military track missile launches, collect technical intelligence and obtain situational awareness in the battlefield.
“We look forward to adding GEO Flight 4’s capabilities to the first line of defense in our nation’s missile defense strategy,” said Tom McCormick, vice president of Lockheed’s overhead persistent infrared systems mission area.
The Air Force’s SBIRS constellation feature multiple satellites in GEO orbit along with hosted payloads in highly elliptical orbit and work to collect large amounts of data for a ground control system built to provide actionable reports for civil, defense and intelligence purposes.
GEO-5 and GEO-6Â satellites are currently in production and will be integrated on the Lockheed-built LM 2100 spacecraft designed to incorporate future modernized sensor suites, the company noted.
Northrop Grumman, the 460th Space Wing and the Remote Sensing Systems Directorate of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center also support the SBIRS development team.
