Mary-Louise Hoffman
Raytheon, an RTX business, has started to develop a space-based coastal monitoring instrument for NASA after completing a critical design review phase.
RTX said Monday the Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer is designed to help researchers gather data on coastal ecosystem conditions and is being built under a contract with the University of New Hampshire.
UNH, the GLIMR project lead, enlisted Raytheon to build the hyperspectral sensor technology after the university won a $107.9 million contract from the space agency four years ago.
NASA expects to send the instrument into geostationary orbit sometime in 2026 or 2027 to generate high-resolution coastal and ocean measurements in the Gulf of Mexico, Amazon River and the southeastern U.S.
Raytheon intends to apply lessons from its work on the GLIMR technology in designing a Geostationary Extended Observations weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as part of a $5.2 million contract from NASA.
